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INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION 



A PEDAGO&IC AND SOCIAL NECESSITY. 



TOGETHER WITH 



A CEITIQUE UPON OBJECTIONS ADVANCED. 



BY/ 

ROBERT S.EIDEIv, 

Mollis, Switzerland. 



TRANSLATED BY MARGARET K. SMITH, 

\ 
State Normal School, Oswego, New York. 



BOSTON : 

PUBLISHED BY D. C. HEATH & CO. 

1887. 



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\^-z.^ 



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COPTBIGHT, 1887, 

Bt MARGARET K. SMITH. 



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Blectrotyper! and Printed h)/ 
Alfred Mudqk & Soy, 24 Fban^lin Steeet. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PUBLISHEES' PEEEACE v 

INTEODUCTION ix 

CHAPTER I. — The Inner Eelation between Industrial, 

Instruction and the Social Question ... 3 

CHAPTEE II. — Errors, Contradictions, and Inconsisten- 
cies OF THE Opponents op Industrial Instruction . 13 

CHAPTEE III. — The Economic Objections to Industrial 

Instruction 30 

I. Competition 30 

II. Speculation 35 

III. Diminution of the Number of Purchasers . . 36 

rv. Misconception of the Utility of Division of Labor, 37 

CHAPTEE IV. — The Plausible and Legal Objections to 

Industrlil Instruction 42 

I. The Child's Inclination for Activity is sufficiently 

cultivated in the Family 42 

11. The Pather should instruct the Son in his Handi- 
craft 55 

III. Compulsory Industrial Instruction vrould Inter- 

fere with the Parents' Eights . . . .57 

IV. The Eural Population require no Industrial Edu- 

cation 66 



iV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. — The Objections of Educators and School- 
men TO Industrial Instruction 74 

I. The Aim of the School and of Industrial Instruc- 
tion 74 

II. Can Gymnastics secure harmonious Develop- 
ment? 83 

III. The School already pursues Hand Labor . . 86 
rv. Disciplinary and Educational Value of Drawing, 

Industrial, and Science Instruction . . 88 
V. Objective Methods of Instruction in Forest and 

Field ........ 97 

VI. Objective and Hand-Labor Instruction . . 99 
VII. Industrial Instruction can not remedy the Disad- 
vantages of the Present School System . 103 
VIII. Increase of Hours for Instruction . . . 106 
IX. Hand Labor should be Vacation Employment, 

and in Childhood merely Play . . .110 

X. School Hand Labor and Choice of a Profession . 115 

XI. The Decline of the Teacher's Position . . 125 

XII. The Union of Study and Labor in the School . 131 

XIII. Method of Industrial Instruction . . . 137 

CHAPTER VI. — What do the Classic Educators say op 

Industrial Instruction? 143 

CHAPTER VII. — Educational and Social Necessity for 

Industrial Instruction. — Supplementary RfisuMi: . 148 
Conclusion 159 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. 



As the readers of Herr Seidel's interesting discus- 
sion may wish to know something of the writer and 
of the circumstances that led to the preparation of 
this little book, we give the following sketch : — 

From his earliest youth, the author was deeply inter- 
ested in educational questions. He was set to thinking 
about industrial education by the following statement 
which he found in the once prohibited, but now famous, 
work of Karl Marx : " In the education of the future, 
labor will be combined with gymnastics and instruction, 
because that is the only method of training symmetri- 
cally developed Tnen, and is also a means of increasing 
the productiveness of the community." Long before 
the question of industrial education had been revived in 
Germany by Clauson-Kaas, Seidel had occupied him- 
self with it ; and having studied educational science and 
been a teacher, he believed himself authorized to present 
the subject from a stand-point other than that from 



VI INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

which it had generally been considered; that is, from 
the pedagogical side. 

He watched the movement set on foot in Germany 
by Clauson-Kaas, bat was convinced that it was an 
error to advocate industrial education as a means for 
elevating the small trades. Through many years' 
personal experience, as well as by thorough study, 
he had learned that the small trades were a de- 
clining form of domestic industry which it would 
be as impossible as it was uneconomic to preserve. 
Experience also showed that industrial instruction, 
in the sphere of mechanical pursuits, in no way im- 
plied the elevation of the small trades. Indeed, the 
small mechanics already complained that the new 
branch of instruction was the cause of their ruin, — 
a complaint which he thought quite as unfounded 
as the belief that by it the trades would attain 
their highest elevation. By industrial instruction, he 
thought the small trades would neither be benefited 
nor ruined ; not benefited, because all the advantages 
of industrial instruction accrue also to the worst enemy 
of the small trades, to the large and machine indus- 
tries ; and not ruined, because they were already 
ruined by these same large industries, with their su- 
perior advantages. Seeing, therefore, that the whole 



PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. Vll 

question was being viewed from a wrong stand-point, 
Seidel interested himself in putting it on a pedagogi- 
cal and therefore a broader basis. 

The present work grew out of a reply made by 
him to objections raised against industrial instruction 
in the Synod of the Canton of Zurich, where the ques- 
tion was up for discussion in the years 1882 and 1884. 
At the earnest solicitation of others, he rewrote the 
work, omitting local and personal matters, and giving 
to it a more general character. In it he has undertaken 
to answer all objections to industrial instruction, from 
whatsoever source, and to state the reasons in its favor. 

He states the question thus : " Is industrial instruc-r 
tion pedagogically necessary, superfluous, or is it actu- 
ally injurious? ^^ And adds : — 

" If it can be shown that it is a pedagogical necessity, 
it becomes the duty of all educators and philanthropists 
to aid in removing the practical difficulties that oppose 
the introduction of hand labor into the school." 



INTRODUCTIOI^. 



At the International Educational Congress held at 
Havre, France, in September, 1885, I heard Herr 
Seidel speak upon the question of industrial instruc- 
tion in the schools, and was much impressed with the 
earnestness of the man, as well as with the force of his 
arguments. 

Herr Seidel's book upon the above-mentioned sub- 
ject has already been translated into French and Italian, 
and I now have much pleasure in presenting it to the 
attention of English-speaking educators and schoolmen, 
with the hope that it may aid in crystallizing the some- 
what indefinite thought upon the question of manual 
instruction in the schools, which already exists in both 
England and America. 

The translation of the work of a writer so unique in 
style, and so peculiar in the use of words, has been no 
light task. I have endeavored, however, to preserve 



X INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

somethino; of the force and clearness of the oriofinal 
text, in which effort I have been greatly assisted by 
Madame Thekla de Soto, of Jena, Thliringia, Ger- 
many, and Prof. C. M. Woodward, of St. Louis, Mo. 

Margaret K. Smith, 
State Normal School, Oswego, J^. Y, 

June 30, 1887. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 



INDUSTEIAL INSTEUCTI0:N[. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INNEK KELATION BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL INSTEUC- 
TION AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 

The friends and opponents of industrial instruction 
are doubtless right in presenting this subject in connec- 
tion with the social question. Just as the question of 
popular education in general is connected with the 
social question, so the question of industrial instruc- 
tion in particular is united with it. 

In the literature extant, we seek in vain to discover 
an explanation of the relationship existing between the, 
two questions. No one fails to perceive that they have 
many exterior points of contact, and these are generally 
pointed out ; but what inner connection exists between 
the two ? Let us try to make this clear. 

If we follow the history of education and instruction 
among different nations, through different epochs, we 
shall find that they, as well as literature and art, law 
and morals, stand in the closest connection with the 
existing social and political conditions. Indeed, we 
see that they are only expressions of these conditions. 
"While in regard to literature and art, law and morals, 



4 INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 

this truth is to a certain extent recognized, in connec- 
tion with forms and systems of education and instruc- 
tion, it is not at all properly recognized. Yet education 
and instruction throughout are only expressions for ex- 
isting social and civil relations. 

In order to prove the correctness of this assertion, we 
have only to ask whether, in the feudal state, before the 
Revolution, our present public-school system could have 
had a place. 

Surely, as with one voice, the answer will be, JSFo. 
Before 1798, and even before 1830, our school of to-day 
was not possible, not even conceivable. The gracious 
lords^ would not have permitted it. They, in common 
with all other rulers, declared education to be one of 
their inalienable prerogatives, and forbade it, and ren- 
dered it impossible for the people. Also, previous to 
emancipation from the burdens of feudalism, the people 
had neither means nor time to have such a school as ex- 
ists to-day. 

Our present school exists on the presumption that it 
is the product of our present civil society. 

But as our present system of education and instruc- 
tion is the expression of our present civil society, so was 
the medifBval system of education and instruction the 
corresponding expression of feudal, clerical, and corpo- 
rate society, and the system of education in ancient states 
the expression of a society established upon slavery. 

* Written -vvith special reference to Switzerland, but in reality true 
in regard to other countries. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 5 

Before slavery existed, in the narrow tribal life, all 
authority was vested in the elders, who also discharged 
the duties of instructors. But in doing this, they could 
develop a system of education and instruction as little 
as, through the isolated examination of natural objects, 
minerals, plants, animals, etc., they could establish 
a science. It was simply domestic education, yet, in 
this connection, it is not necessary to think of a house 
or home ; it may be just as correctly associated with a 
tent, a cave, a forest, or an open field. As domestic 
education, it was an individual education, without co- 
herence, conscious aim, principles, or system. 

But as slavery increased, and out of tribal rule a 
state with a governing class was evolved, a state edu- 
cation, a system of instruction, was developed. At first, 
this education had naturally but a single aim, viz., to 
strengthen the power of the governing classes, and to 
fortify and increase their superiority. We need only 
think of the Spartan system of education. As all la- 
bor — even training and Reaching — was despised, so 
the duties of instructing and educating were transferred 
to the slaves. Even in the glorified land of Greece, 
the educators were slaves, and occupied a much lower 
plane, socially, than the nursery-maids of the present 
day. 

In the ancient states, education and instruction being 
limited strictly to the governing class, the great mass 
of the nation, the slaves, were completely excluded from 
its advantages. The austere Cato, who wrote, among 



6 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

other things, pedagogic treatises, advised that the cus- 
tom of resting on Sunday be discontinued, that the 
slaves might be employed on that day ; "for," said he, 
"the slave must either work or sleep; otherwise, he 
will entertain improper thoughts." 

When Avith the Roman Empire the Old World de- 
clined, and out of long wrestling and struggling the castes 
of the Christian world arose, the forms of education and 
instruction became changed. The education of classes 
was established. Finest, hnight, and burgher were 
reared and trained. In the early Middle Ages, when 
the citizen's position was as yet undeveloped, the educa- 
tion of priest and knight exceeded that of the burghers, 
who were weak in numbers and consequently powerless. 
As with childish presumption, mediaeval society consid- 
ered itself to be merely a continuation of the Roman, 
as Latin was the ecclesiastical, secular, and commercial 
language, and furthermore, as the Old World treas- 
ures of learning had become crystallized in the Latin 
tongue, we cannot wonder that to priest and burgher, 
Latin appeared to be the principal means of educa- 
tion, as well as the end and aim of all teaching and 
learning. 

For the knights, however, gymnastics, the use of 
arms, and court service were the aims of instruction 
and culture, because they — as was Latin for the 
clergy — were the means of government. 

But as the citizen class constantly developed, burgher 
education also became more prominent. Naturally, the 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 7 

development of the burgher class went hand in hand 
with the decline of the nobility and clergy. This de- 
velopment was greatly promoted by the discoveries and 
inventions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and 
this powerful strengthening of the burgher's position 
found its expression in a still greater advance in 
buro;her education and culture. From the sixteenth 
century forward, burgher education and training were 
predominant, while the clerical and still more the 
knightly, retrograded. Already isolated educational 
prophets appeared, and proclaimed, of course without 
practical success, the idea of popular education. But 
in the eighteenth century, when the burgher's position 
became that of the mass of the nation, the idea of gen- 
eral education as a practical necessity, and no longer as 
a theoretical formula, first arose and opposed the idea 
of the education of rank or class. 

Those forerunners of popular education — a Rous- 
seau, the philanthropists, a Pestalozzi — knew very 
well what was meant by this, and their followers must 
also have known, otherwise would the common school 
of modern times never have become a reality. Gen- 
eral popular education was to them no mere phrase, 
too indefinite, saying too much and therefore too 
little. They did not understand from it arithmetical 
expedients from the learning of the Europeans, the 
Chinese, and the Soudanese, but they understood, in 
the first place, opposition to class and caste instruction ; 
and in the second, the harmonious training of all the 



8 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

faculties and talents of all men, at least of all the mem- 
bers of the same nation. 

Now, is this general education already achieved? 
No ! and again no ! It has only made a mere begin- 
ning in the public school. The foundation is laid, but 
as yet no building has been raised thereon. 

Who will deny that even to-day we are authorized 
in speaking of class education, in the face of the 
fact that the majority of our young citizens have hardly 
command of even the elements of education and 
knowledge, as is proved by the recruiting examina- 
tions ? ^ 

Is it not true that between the factory hand and the 
educated man of to-day almost as great a gap exists 
as between the slave and the philosopher of ancient 
Greece ? How much of literature, art, and science does 
the mass of our people understand? Who reads our 
classics? Who appreciates our art treasures? Who 
comprehends anything of the enormous acquisitions of 
modern science? 



1 lu Prussia, for some time, recruits for the army have been ex- 
amined in reading and writing, and it has been sliown tliat in single 
provinces, tliirteen and even nineteen of every hundred men have 
not been able to read and w^rite. 

In Switzerland, whei-e for ten years these examinations of men 
capable of bearing arms have been made by teachers, aud not, as in 
Prussia, by military men, and have included arithmetic and knowl- 
edge of the fatherland, i. e., geography, history, constitutional his- 
tory, only a few were ignorant of reading and writing, in 1884-85 
from three per cent to four per cent, but the general results were 
very limited and unsatisfactory. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. V 

Every one who knows the circumstances can answer 
the question only with deep sorrow and confusion. 

So long as such gaps yawn between the members of 
a nation, the demand for general education appears to 
us, and to many thousand others as well, to be no mere 
phrase, though a thorough schoolman may find it too 
indefinite. 

In the face of the fact that it is still possible to set 
people against each other like wild hordes, it can be 
no mere indefinite phrase. If general education were 
achieved, this would be simply impossible. 

Indeed, we should be careful of speaking slightingly 
of general education, for the reason that our noblest and 
best men have struggled and suffered for it. 

The fact that the promulgation of human development 
goes hand in hand with the promulgation of human 
rights, proves the close connection between great educa- 
tional theories and social revolutions. About the time 
of great social transformations, great educators always 
make their appearance. Hence, each form of society 
begets its form of education, and each stage of the economic 
development of mankind implies a definite system of edu- 
cation and instruction. 

We no more have a constant, unchanging pedagogy 
than we have an unchanging form of society ; both are 
in a state of continual movement and continual develop- 
ment. Now, in the matter of social development, what 
is our position to-day ? Whoever has capacity to un- 
derstand and interpret the sighing and groaning in the 



10 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

rushing loom of time, knows that a mighty social revo- 
lution is in the near future. The present economic form 
of capital, private production, free competition, and 
profit of men by men, has expired; it has become an 
anachronism, and must go the way of slavery and feudal- 
ism. We already find ourselves in a transition state, 
ready for new economic forms, for common interests, 
intelligent co-operation, and assistance of all for all. 

In proportion to the realization of this new social form 
will a new system of education and instruction make 
its way. The new element in this system will be the 
principle of hand labor. The principle of socialism, to 
make co-operative profitable labor the groundwork of 
social and political life, demands recognition and reali- 
zation in the educational department. We do not con- 
sider industrial instruction to be merely occupation for 
otherwise idle boys, still less an opening of new sources 
of profit. or income for poor parents, or the improve- 
ment of handicrafts ; but the introduction of a new 
principle, that of labor, into public instruction, exactly 
as the Rousseau-Pestalozzian movement was considered 
with regard to the principle of natural development and 
observation . 

We are neither afraid nor ashamed to assume the 
prophet's role, and to predict : — 

/So surely as loitJi civil society the ideas of the culture 
of mankind, natural development, and observation ?nade 
their loay into the pedagogy of the time, so surely with 
the new order of society will its principle, labor, achieve 



ESTDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 11 

its citizenship in the system of edumtion. Struggling 
against it is vain. The future in the state, as well as 
in pedagogy , belongs to labor. 

We should not be guided to false conclusions by 
the historical evidence that, during the last hundred 
years, industrial instruction has several times vainly 
demanded admission into general education. Whoever, 
on the plea of its worthlessness, would exclude this 
branch of study, together with its method, or would 
be misled into the belief that industrial instruction 
will never be admitted into the plan of public educa- 
tion, would only exhibit a very unflattering evidence of 
his own historical knowledge and judgment. Objective 
instruction was obliged to wait nearly two hundred years 
for general recognition and adoption, yet to-day no one 
will question its value. Sometimes the good triumphs 
late, also sometimes not at all. Success is a standard 
not to be employed by critics. 

As a sign of the times, we quote a selection from the 
discourse of M. Jules Ferry, late French Minister of 
Public Instruction, upon the occasion of the laying of 
the corner-stone of the school for primary, superior, 
and professional instruction (at Paris). He spoke as 
follows : — 

" We desire to ennoble hand labor. We have written 
this motto in large letters upon our programme, and we 
have chosen the surest, indeed the only means of secur- 
ing the recognition of the nobility of hand labor, not 
only from those who exercise it, but also from society 



12 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

as a whole. We have introduced hand labor into the 
school itself! 

"Believe me, when the plane and file are accorded 
their place of honor by the side of the compass, the 
map, and the text-book in history, and when they be- 
come the objects of rational and systematic instruction, 
only then will a great amount of prejudice die out, and 
much of the spirit of caste vanish away. Social peace 
will find a place upon the seats of the elementary school ; 
and harmony, with her beaming light, will illuminate 
the future of the nation ! " 

Truly, if this has been declared by the leader of pub- 
lic instruction for a great nation, and if, as we see 
to-day in France, the word has become flesh, then this 
matter cannot be arrested by a few apt phrases of school- 
men, but with or without the mediation of official peda- 
gogy, must make its way through the educated world. 



LNDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 13 



CHAPTER n. 

EEROES, CONTEADICTIONS, AND INCONSISTENCIES OF 
THE OPPONENTS OF INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

All opponents of industrial instruction, from the 
great Diesterweg to tJie smallest laborer in the vine- 
yard of education, start from the entirely false premise 
that industrial instruction in the public school has for 
its aim the training of the children for mechanics. 
They consider that it implies the introduction of one or 
of several definite trades into the school. Out of in- 
dustrial instruction they make a kind of spectre, strike 
out boldly at this phantom of their own construction ; 
and since every spectre is easily vanquished, in the 
eyes of many spectators they succeed in slaying this 
dragon. While Diesterweg, in regard to industrial 
instruction, restricted himself to speaking of learning 
special handicrafts in the school, and Griibe discourses 
upon " apprentices to trades," a later and more impor- 
tant educational writer deals with " bread-winning in- 
struction for the children in the school," and another 
with " excessive labor before the proper time." 

But the latest opponents of this branch and method 
of instruction thoughtlessly identify the Klauson Cass 



14 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

efforts for the elevation of domestic industry with in- 
dustrial instruction in general, whereby they place, not 
only the efforts mentioned, but especially the aim of 
the Danish Rittmeister in a false light. ^ However, if 
we credit the Danish Eittmeister with efforts for the 
elevation of domestic industry, we characterize only 
the object and not the person. 

The indentification of these efforts with industrial 
instruction is, however, a fundamental error which 
is only explicable upon the grounds of ignorance of 
the history of industrial instruction, lack of discern- 
ment, or preconceived prejudice. This error is unfor- 
tunately so universal that even the friends of industrial- 
instruction are not free from it. The attacks of the 
opponents of industrial instruction, however, are not 
directed in their overwhelming majority against it, but 
generally against efforts for the elevation of domestic 
industry, which, as a rule, they exaggerate; hence 
they apply to the case of Klauson Cass, and not to 
industrial instruction in general. Now, these move- 
ments for the promotion of domestic industry represent 
only one form, and indeed the lowest form, of industrial 
instruction. The adherents and forerunners of this 
kind of industrial instruction — among whom Klauson 
Cass, from his theoretical stand-point, can no longer be 
numbered — observe as their aim principally the devel- 

' This reference is to Klauson Cass, a Danish gentleman, who, a 
few years ago, published a work in connection with industrial labor 
in the home. 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 15 

opment of certain kinds of manual skill, partly by this 
means to promote domestic industry, partly to prepare 
for a later profession, to' supply trained strength to hand 
labor, and thus to elevate it. 

Their motives are essentially of an economic nature, 
and indeed limited to very narrow grooves, in which 
educational considerations have no part. 

A second much higher form of industrial instruction 
is advoca,ted by those who seek for the aim of indus- 
trial instruction preferably in the training in manual 
skill, in awakening pleasure and love for labor and 
intelligence for life. To them formal training is the 
chief object, and hence they unite theory with practice. 
While with the first party, essentially economic points 
of view are determinative, with the second principally 
educational points of view are authoritative; while, 
according to the first party, any mechanic totally 
untrained in pedagogy may act as instructor, though 
he understand not a particle of the theory of his trade, 
according to the second party technically trained in- 
structors will be required. 

The point which the two parties have in common is 
that a practical element shall be infused into the school, 
and a closer connection between it and life effected. 

Now, although we advocate the views of neither 
party, least of all the first, we must admit the common 
aim to be entirely justifiable. Also, who would be so 
short-sighted as not to perceive that a closer connection 
between school and life is necessary, and that the school 



16 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

needs a practical element as a change from its abstract 
instruction? To the third party of advocates of indus- 
trial instruction belong those who perceive in hand 
labor an indispensable means for the harmonious educa- 
tion of mankind. To them, labor is not, in the first 
place, the end and means for the satisfying of economic 
needs, but it is, above all, the means for physical and 
mental training and education. Training in manual 
skill, satisfying of material needs, preparation for life, 
are thereby certainly not excluded ; but they are not 
the first aims, say rather the second, third, fourth, 
or that they may be considered incidental products. 
Besides less well-known names, nearly all the great 
educators, especially Rousseau and Pestalozzi, appear 
as advocates of this party. 

Now, if industrial instruction be opposed from the 
educational side, — and the opposition is chiefly from 
that side, — the educational view of it should be opposed, 
and not the economic, small-citizen view of a Klauson 
Cass and cf our mechanics. That would be proper for 
educators, for to them educational and not economic 
reasons should be the standard. 

From the above few remarks it is easy to perceive 
that it is wrong to assert that industrial instruction deals 
only with home labor and domestic industry. If this 
were truly the case, we should not advocate it, for we 
know that home labor is a declining form of produc- 
tion, which, on account of hygienic and moral injury, 
is rightly condemned in political economy. We have 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 17 

ourselves suffered from the pernicious influence of home 
industry, and lost by it several years of health, strength, 
and enjoyment of life, so that we can not become 
enthusiastic over home labor, which means home in- 
dustry. Home industry is nothing but a great martyr- 
dom for the laborer who pursues it. It is also an 
economic anachronism, opposed to the progress of large 
industries, which only preserves its identity for the 
reason that by it the laborers employed are so badly 
paid and stand on so low a social scale, that the fur- 
nishing of effective machinery, otherwise long known, 
pays the undertaker no better than the employing of 
the cheapest kind of hand labor. Whoever' can at present 
recommend home industry as a social remedy, certainly 
does not know it from personal observation, and has very 
little idea of modern systems of labor. 

Those who, by home industry, propose to relieve the 
social need, start from the supposition that social misery 
had its origin in the people's aversion to labor. This is 
absolutely wrong. Need and misery have not arisen 
from dislike for labor, but from the absorption by large 
capital of the interests of the citizen and farmer of the 
middle class, and from human labor power being replaced 
by machinery. Thousands of laborers would gladly 
work, if they could only find work to do. Do we not 
know that laborers out of work demand employment 
from state and community? Is this, perhaps, a sign of 
aversion to labor? or, when merely to tide over a crisis, 
skilful mechanics, indeed, artistic workmen, do the 

2 



18 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

work of navvies, is it a sign of dislike for labor? When 
we speak of laborers who are suffering severely under 
a crisis as if they were people dreading work, who must 
be assisted economically and morally by having pleasure 
infused into labor, do we not add mockery to misery? 
"We know needy German districts and otherwise poor 
neighborhoods, so called, but we have never seen and 
never heard that the population living in those places 
ever failed in industry and love for labor ; but certainly 
work, or, at least, profitable employment, failed them. 
Then, who is to be assisted by home industry? The 
factory hand and the laborer in domestic industry. But 
if the business is good, then the factory hand, with from 
eleven to fourteen hours', and the laborer in home in- 
dustry, with at least fifteen hours' time for work, has 
more than enouo-h to do. Neither time nor strensfth 
remains to him for the exercise of other home labor. 
However, if business does not flourish, and he has time 
to be diligent at home, and zealously constructs brushes, 
brooms, baskets, pasteboard work, house and kitchen 
utensils, good ! but who is to buy them from him ? 
Even in good times people buy those things last of all ; 
also, there is really no lack of them, and a part of them 
is so cheaply manufactured on a large scale that the un- 
skilled small producer has no chance at all for competi- 
tion. Besides, where would the laborer get money for 
the purchase of tools and raw material, especially if no 
immediate exchange of the labor products were possible ? 
It is plain that in order to help suffering laborers through 



INDUSTKIAL INSTKUCTION. 19 

a crisis by means of home labor, they must all be made 
small manufacturers, capable of keeping goods in stock. 
This can be done just as little as Jiome labor can heljp the 
social misery of laborers. Those for whom home labor 
is recommended as most useful can make no use of it. 
What irony I 

But home labor cannot improve the condition of the 
small farmer ; at the best it can only furnish him with a 
few advantages. It will not, however, guard him from 
social stunting, for it is no remedy for the disease from 
which the small farmers suffers, viz., the impossibility 
of competition with large business and large capital in 
agriculture. 

As little as the small farmer can compete with large 
agriculturists, just as little, or indeed still less, can he 
appear as competitor with large industries ; he cannot 
even compete with the mechanic, for he can only, 
during a small part of the year, devote his strength to 
home industry ; hence, he lacks the skill and practice 
peculiar to the mechanic. Then again, the farmer with 
his home-made articles could never appear as producer 
for the market ; by means of home industry he could 
only supply his own needs. Under undeveloped eco- 
nomic conditions this producing, mending, and repair- 
ing may be of use in supplying individual needs ; 
under developed economic conditions, since the farmer 
has ceased to produce for himself, where he rather 
produces for the market, and obtains his supplies from 
the market, then the making and repairing of domestic 



20 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

utensils has for him no, or at best only a questiona- 
ble, economic advantage. 

Hence home labor is only a very doubtful remedy 
for this class; indeed, it hardly deserves the name of 
such. 

For the artisans' class, home labor can not be con- 
sidered a social remedy, for when would the artisan 
pursue home industry? If business prospers, then he 
has work enough ; if not, then the dilettantish pursuit 
of another handicraft would not help him. Besides, 
upon the occasion of a depression in business, when the 
products of a large trade are not salable, it is not 
probable that those of a small industry would be so. 

Now, the small, badly paid officials of all kinds only 
remain. Of them it can be said that they have time 
to pursue home industry, and thus increase their in- 
comes. But in the cities, and there the greater part 
of them live, where have they dwellings in which they 
can pursue home industry? Nowhere. And if the 
problem of dwellings were solved in favor of home 
labor, where would be the establishments which would 
make it possible for the laboring officials to bring their 
wares to the purchaser? They are yet to be provided. 
Also, the producers could not be considered capable of 
competing with large industries ; then home labor must 
remain limited to the supply of individual needs. The 
direct economic advantage for the person so occupied 
is so problematic, that by it his position can in no way 
be improved. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 21 

The sum of the matter is, that home industry, as a 
social remedy, is Utopian. 

It is quite different to view the question from a 
stand-point according to which it cannot be under- 
stood as home industry, and cannot be recommended 
as a remedy for social needs, but only as a pleasant 
employment in leisure hours for teachers, scholars, 
officials, and others of the better situated classes. This 
stand-point is entirely justified; it is, however, not 
economic, hut pedagogic. Such domestic industry has 
no economic, but merely a moral value. Since indus- 
trial instruction could improve such home labor, this 
would be a good reason for its introduction into public 
instruction. 

From the foregoing characterization of the forms of 
industrial instruction, it is furthermore obvious that 
we are not authorized in opposing industrial instruc- 
tion to general education, as is often done by the 
opponents, and even by the individual advocates of 
the former. 

Industrial instruction is in no way opposed to gen- 
eral education, hut is itself a means for securing the 
same. We are not dealing with home labor as a Uto- 
pian means for removing social calamity, hut with the 
highest and deepest pedagogic questions. 

Truly we can hardly understand how it is possible 
to attack industrial instruction with the commonplace 
talk about " bread-winning instruction and overwork 
in the schools " before the children have reached a suit- 



22 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

able age. We know very well that there are schools 
into which a kind of mediaeval branch of industry has 
been introduced, — schools in which the children are 
employed with a kind of mechanical, spiritless work ; 
but to call labor pursued in this way industrial in- 
struction, and to present it as an objection to indus- 
trial instruction, is about as reasonable as to present 
a mechanically conducted school of stud}? as a tj^pe 
of schools of study, and because of it to condemn 
the whole institution of schools. Nevertheless, the 
opponents of industrial instruction, either knowingly 
or unknowingly, practise this system of attack, which 
seems to us as little worthy of an educated man as it 
seems uncritical to condemn the whole system of kin- 
dergartens because a number of badly conducted kin- 
dergartens exist. If we were to deal so with all 
human institutions, we should be obliged to reject 
them all, for even those founded upon the best princi- 
ples exhibit here and there a practical mistake. In 
this way, we should soon come to absolute Nihilism. 

As regards the acquisition of bread-winning knowl- 
edge in the schools, we may justly wonder that this ar- 
gument should be brought against industrial instruction 
by schoolmen, as the advocates of schools for study 
omit no opportunity of mentioning their practical bene- 
fit. We have never yet heard it stated that the school 
does not and can not prepare for life. But preparation 
for life, prosaically expressed, is nothing else than 
bread-winning instruction. If, therefore, the aim were 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 23 

truly defined for industrial instruction (which is sel- 
dom done, and indeed never among educators), viz., to 
teach the children to earn their bread, it would not be 
at all foreign to the purpose of the present school, but 
according to the proclamation of all schoolmen, and a 
purely legitimate definition of its peculiar aim. A 
large number of school laws declare emphatically that 
the aim of the public school is education for civic use- 
fulness and preparation for life. Unless this aim of the 
public school is denied, then industrial instruction can 
not be turned off with the misleading phrase (especially 
used in pedagogic circles) "bread-winning instruction." 
But without 'putting one's self in opposition to its whole 
historical development, to the classic educators, and to 
the popular understanding of the purpose of the public 
school, this aim cannot be denied. If it should be stated 
that the school does not enable the child to earn a liv- 
ing, and can in no way fit him for life, how can the 
great sacrifice which the people make for the school be 
justified ? However, not only men of business say that 
the present school does not fulfil its purpose, and 
is worse than nothing as a preparation for life, but, 
among all the people, the opinion is spread abroad that 
to the great mass of its adherents the school is of very 
little worth. From this view, can we wonder that the 
people have so little sympathy with the school, and 
even upon occasion show themselves hostile to it? 
Those who have to struggle with the cares and needs of 
life, as at present large masses of the people must, are 



24 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

not inclined to bear sacrifices for institutions whose 
benefits are not clearly manifest. 

We repeat, not only the laity and school enemies are 
led to doubt the benefits of the present school for the 
life of the people, but professional people, and warm, 
indeed the warmest friends of the school. Hence, from 
the educational side, it is fitting that we should test the 
means which claim to prepare the children for life bet- 
ter than those which are at present employed. The 
matter is too important to be satisfied with catch- 
words ; we must keep to the point. 

Furthermore, by confusing industrial with profes- 
sional instruction, and mistaking one for the other, the 
opponents of industrial education make a great mistake. 
Now, it is perfectly clear that the two branches are 
widely separated, industrial bearing about the same 
relation to professional instruction that elementary in- 
struction bears to instruction in a special science, e. g., 
in Ophthalmy. Nevertheless, if one be taken for the 
other, then it is evident that wrong judgment and 
entirely irrelevant argument must arise ; and this is 
actually the case. Because of this confounding and 
confusion, it is almost comical to see how the opponents 
go out of their way to show that industrial instruction 
can not make a skilful and ready mechanic ; that it is 
too early ; that it anticipates an instruction which be- 
longs to the workshop ; that because it is too early, it 
causes weariness of the school ; that with children it 
must degenerate into play, as the military play, for the 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 25 

training of youth (cadet system), and hence wearies 
and disgusts them, etc.^ 

Certainly, these arguments are only correct under the 
supposition that industrial and professional instruction 
are the same thing; but as this supposition is false, 
they, in general and particular, amount to nothing. 
They prove nothing against industrial instruction, hut 
only against ^premature professional training. Industrial 
instruction, however, is not intended to he professional 
instruction, hut only a general preparation for practical 
training, just as school instruction is a general prepara- 
tion for theoretical training. This, however, is not its 
principal aim; its principal aim is the harmonious 
development of the future man.. 

"Hand labor is good; it is, indeed, for the child in- 
dispensable, as it constitutes a part of its nature. Its 
effect is moralizing, its usefulness indisjiutable. The 
introduction of this labor into the school is an ideal 
which it is impossible to attain ; although it would 
educate the poor child against greed and cupidity, and 
preserve him from vagrancy and beggary, and in view 
of his future calling in life would be of great benefit to 
him." 

One would think this must have been said by an 
advocate of industrial instruction ; but this would be 
a mistake. It was indeed said by an opponent who 
has gone so far in his arguments against industrial 

' Switzerland, Teachers' Journal, 1884. 



26 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

instruction as to assert that it develops the productive 
and material side of the child, to the injury of the 
qualities of mind, heart, and character, and that the 
new burden of industrial instruction would, from the 
double stand-point of knowledge and morals, — yes, 
indeed, morals, — be an injury to the quality of school- 
work. The last sentence is oracular in its obscurity ; 
however, if it have any meaning, the writer wishes to 
intimate that knowledge and morals may be injured 
by industrial instruction. Now, if we collect the 
statements of this opponent, we have the following 
complete contradictions, which, according to Goethe, 
are equally mysterious for the sage and the fool : — 
" Hand labor is for the child indispensable ; but its 
introduction into the school, not its exclusive dominion 
there, develops the child on its productive and material 
side, to the injury of the qualities of mind, heart, and 
character. Hand labor constitutes apart of child nature; 
but its introduction into the school, not the exclusive 
pursuit of it, develops the child from its productive 
and material side, to the injury of the qualities of mind, 
heart, and character. The introduction of hand labor 
into the school is an ideal whose attainment is impossi- 
ble ; but the introduction of hand labor into the school 
develops the child from the productive side, to the in- 
jury of mind, heart, and character. Hand labor has a 
moralizing effect ; but the introduction of hand labor 
into the school develops the child from the productive 
and material side to the injury of the qualities of mind. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 27 

heart, and character, aud to the injury of his 'knowledge 
and morals. The benefit — benefit entirely general, 
then moral benefits not excluded — of hand labor is 
indispensable; by its introduction into the school, the 
poor children would be preserved from the evil influ- 
ences of cupidity, vagrancy, and beggary; but its in- 
troduction into the school injures the qualities of mind, 
heart, and character as well as of the pupils^ morals and 
knowledge. In regard to the future choice of a pro- 
fession, hand labor would be of the greatest advantage 
to the poor child ; but the introduction of hand labor 
into the school would result in a superficial training of 
the young laborer for his future profession.^' 

But it appears that hand labor has all these evil, 
even dangerous results only in the school, for the 
worthy reporter at the Synod in Courtlery (Bernese 
Jura) thinks that school workshops, established by 
private individuals, if they were conducted with a sep- 
arate programme, pursued side by side with that of 
the public school, would do good service. 

" By the practical working out of what is con- 
ceived, the observation will be sharpened and strength- 
ened." 

"By means of representation, construction, the reg- 
ular way for the creative instinct in the child will be 
pointed out. In this way the child secures an inner 
satisfaction which must definitely infiuence its dis- 
position and character." " Joy in self-activity awakens 
pleasure in labor. By one's own work, one learns to 



28 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

value the labor of others, and iu this way morality 
is promoted." 

Again, this is not said by an advocate but by an 
opponent of industrial instruction, who, by " practical 
working out of what is conceived," and by "represen- 
tation and construction," really means hand labor. A 
firm friend of hand labor could hardly assert more in 
its favor than this opponent has expressed. There, 
without if or but, the disciplinary, educative, and 
moralizing value of hand labor is acknowledged. 

Nevertheless, industrial instruction is called a 
" doubtful experiment," which, on account of its " prob- 
lematic advantage," cannot be included in the number 
of obligatory school studies. 

What logic ! It stands quite on a level with that of 
the opponents already mentioned. By labor, observa- 
tion will be promoted, the instinct of activity regu- 
lated, the child inwardly satisfied, made happy, dis- 
position and character trained, pleasure in work 
aroused, and morality promoted ; but all this is of no 
benefit. Industrial instruction is a doubtful experi- 
ment, and its advantage problematic. 

Every one will expect that such an opponent would 
exclude all forms and conditions of industrial instruc- 
tion from the schools. But this is not the case. It is 
not only not rejected, but it is even demanded. 

" In the elementary schools (from seven to ten 
years) a series of the Froebel occupations should be 
pursued, and in the grades of the real and secondary 



ESTDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 29 

school (from ten to fifteen years) no hindrances are 
to be placed in the way of the application of manual 
activity for the promotion of mental instruction." 

Yet what but hand labor are the Froebel occupations ? 
And from the expression, " manual activity," what but 
hand labor can be understood ? 

This opponent recommends what he opposes. What 
a contradiction ! 

"What is the benefit arising from a one-sided cultiva- 
tion of the hand ? " cries out the same opponent. Now, 
no one, not even the earnest advocate of home industry, 
demands a one-sided cultivation of the hand, but all 
wish to develop the mind as well. In accomplishing 
the latter, however, the hand is not to be neglected. 
We repeat that since the time of Diesterweg, the point 
at issue in the struggle against industrial instruction 
has been based upon the false supposition that indus- 
trial instruction consists in the teaching of some kind 
of trade, or at most of some single manual occupation. 
When will this error, which has prevented so many from 
perceiving the truth, disappear ? 



30 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE ECONOMIC OBJECTIONS TO INDUSTRIAL 
INSTEUCTION. 

I. COMPETITION. 

One objection to industrial instruction is, that in 
many trades it creates a dangerous competition. To 
his complaints against the competition of prisons, 
houses of correction, and orphan asylums, the mechanic 
would soon add one about the competition of the schools. 

These objections are quite correct, and we have already 
referred to the over-estimate of the economic advantages 
of industrial instruction ; but they are only right under 
the supposition that industrial instruction in the school 
would be pursued as factory labor, and that the public 
school would become a manufactory for the production 
of playthings, brushes, straw and pajper wares, etc. 
Now, is that really to be feared? Certainly not. School- 

' We say economic, and not politico-economic, because the expres- 
sion ' ' political economy " is unsuitable. No educated people manage 
their economic affairs for themselves, but they have economic rela- 
tions with many other nations, and no educated nation of the present 
time has yet brought tlie trade and distribution of labor products to 
an economic basis ; that is, to a conscious organization of labor con- 
ducted according to certain principles. 



INDUSTRIAL USrSTRUCTION. 31 

houses will not become factories ; rather, factories will 
become school-houses. Whoever knows anything of 
the movement regarding children's labor in factories 
within the last thirty years will be freed from all 
anxiety regarding the possibility of child labor in the 
school being conducted after the manner of factory 
labor. Those only who are entirely ignorant regarding 
the great movement against children's labor, and who 
know no form of industrial instruction except that of 
Klauson Cass, and that in a form which misrepresents 
it and degrades it into factory labor, can have any fear 
of danger of competition. As long as factory labor is 
not transplanted into the school ; as long as no branch 
of industry apart from the aims of the school be pur- 
sued, provided, rather, that industrial instruction be 
pursued with special reference to the aims of education 
and instruction, it can no more create competition with 
trades than the industrial instruction of girls has here- 
tofore caused competition with dress-makers. 

Competition can only arise in a case where one is in 
a condition to produce more cheaply. Now it is clear 
(and by the opponents of industrial education it is 
made a prominent point) that a school which remains 
a school, and does not become a factory, cannot pro- 
duce so cheaply as a large, well-ordered establishment 
which has the advantage of- machinery and division of 
labor. This point is so clear and indisputable, that 
it requires no further discussion. If, however, it be 
asserted that industrial instruction will give rise to 



32 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

competition in many trades, such an assertion rests 
on a false basis. 
It is premised : — 

1, That industrial instruction in the school be pur- 
sued as a kind of ftictory labor. Year in, year out, 
in some school, some special article will be manufac- 
tured : perhaps in one school, brooms ; in another, 
straw rugs ; in a third, pasteboard boxes ; in a fourth, 
wooden plates, etc. Or again, that in all the schools, 
throughout the whole year, the same articles be con- 
structed by all the children. 

This supposition is entirely wrong. No one in his 
right mind would say a word in favor of such a gen- 
eral arrangement of industrial instruction, and not a 
teacher could be found for it. Such instruction would 
be in no way educative, but, like factory labor, would 
be stupefying in its effects. 

2. Let it be assumed that the state and community 
would furnish material, tools, teachers, and places to 
work for such industrial instruction, and not concern 
themselves hereafter about the labor products in the 
mass. These would rather be sold privately, — by 
whom ? Whether by pupil or teacher, no one knows 
rightly, and indeed only at a price equal to the value 
of the materials used. 

That this supposition lacks foundation must be clear 
to every one. We consider it an insult to a state and 
community of organized .people (to which we teachers 
belong) to believe that they would be so short-sighted 



INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 33 

as not to be concerned with the mass of labor products 
of the institutions of a state or community, or to under- 
sell them, or to give them up to any kind of specu- 
lators. 

These are simply inconceivable assumptions. No 
one sells privately labor products in bulk. For this, a 
large market, indeed, the market of the world, is needed. 
The products of wholesale industries cannot be under- 
sold by an institution belonging to a state or commu- 
nity, or given over to speculators, without general 
indignation being raised against it by the injured party. 
Wholesale labor products could not, in any economi- 
cally developed state, be furnished at the cost of the 
materials used, for this would lead to domestic bank- 
ruptcy. 

A notice in Otto Salomon's "Labor and Public 
School," upon the labor, school connected with the 
public school at Wenersborg, on Wener Lake in 
Sweden, wherein it is stated that the articles made 
will be sold privately and easily disposed of, because 
they will be estimated at no more than the value of 
the materials used, is greatly exaggerated, and has 
been simply transported into countries with developed 
economic conditions. But whoever has read this notice 
knows that there labor products, not in bulk, but 
separately, are dealt with. But the principal point is, 
Sweden is a country whose economic development is at 
least thirty years behind that of Germany and Switzer- 
land. If w^e make use of the manifestations in Swedish 
3 



34 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

economic conditions as conclusions for Germany and 
Switzerland, we must be led into absurdities. 

If a state and community once furnish for industrial 
instruction teachers, shops, tools, and materials, then 
tliey will concern themselves with the labor products, 
and make arrangements for their market and disposal 
as well. Since in the first place, pedagogical aims are 
to be reached by industrial instruction, and surely will 
be pursued in its interests, so a part of the labor prod- 
ucts, indeed much the greater part, will find disposal 
m the interests of instruction. The other part can be 
ofiered in warehouses, and sold at market price?. No 
sensible administration of a state or community, in order 
to compete with a state or community, will go below 
market prices. Also, in order to avoid the opposition 
of small trades against the institution, the private labor 
schools should not sell more cheaply. One would not 
be tempted, however, to sell under the market price, for 
the production of the things would be much dearer than 
the products of trade, or of tlie manufactory. It has 
never yet been said that in the schools for spinning, 
weaving, carving, watch-making, the products could be 
made for less, and were sold at a lower price. 

If one wishes to honor labor, then each article may 
bear the name of the maker, and the parents of the 
little artist may have the right of precedence in the 
shops where the products are sold. If the articles of 
his manufacture were really of service in the family, 
what a justifiable pride the child would experience ! 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 35 

That would be an inducement to do good work. But 
one could go still further with this inducement to honor 
labor, by having a sum recorded quarterly, according to 
the proportion of work done by each pupil, in a merit 
book, which would serve as a kind of testimonial. At 
the time of his leaving school, this amount, with interest, 
could be paid to the pupil, and might serve him as a 
means for securing further education. Such an arrange- 
ment would be suitable for public as well as private 
institutions, and indeed is already in operation in the 
garden labor school in Weimar.-^ By such a plan, 
the school would become a truly educational savings 
bank, and an economic means of education would be 
furnished the pupil, who by it would save for the bank 
what he himself had earned, and not what he without 
labor had received from his parents. 

II. SPECULATION. 

The opponents^ of industrial instruction say that 
because of the speculation involved in it, this branch 
of instruction is in danger of furnishing a temptation 
to take undue advantage of children's strength. They 
speak of industrial instruction itself as if it were a 
means for utilizing child-labor on a large scale, or 
as if it were an industrial pursuit by children. 
Now, we have already shown the entire incorrectness 

' J. Biihlmaim, A School Journey in Germany. Zurich, Magazine, 
1873. 
* German Industrial Journal. 



36 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

of the supposition that any manufacturing " business " 
by child-hibor can be carried on in the school. In 
such a case, industrial instruction would have to 
become children's labor in school factories. But 
care is taken that this shall not happen. Even in 
this respect, the trees do not reach the skies. The 
beautiful time of child-labor in factories is greatly 
on the decline, and the humane world will soon have 
achieved its complete overthrow. 

As we know, speculation deals with things subject to 
strong fluctuations in price, which yield more than the 
usual profits. But it must wait long before industrial 
instruction — even if pursued entirely in the sense of 
home industry — would yield the high profits of spec- 
ulation. It must wait till doomsday, for, according to 
all human insio;ht and foresight, this time will never 
come. Industrial instruction will realize just about as 
little profit for sjjeculators as does mental instruction. 
Since speculators have so wide a field for their activity, 
it will never enter their minds to choose industrial 
instruction as an object. They have still a chance for 
profit in grain and cattle, wool and cotton, silk and 
hemp, railroads and steamboats, houses and lands, 
paper and rags. 

III. DIMINUTION OF THE NUMBER OF PURCHASERS. 

An objection is made to industrial instruction on 
the ground that in a short time we should have nine 
tenths of the population producers and one tenth 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 37 

purchasers. With the almost chronic failures in busi- 
ness, and the limited purchasing capacity of the peo- 
ple, such an objection weighs heavily, and with the 
credulous multitude its effect never fails. The posi- 
tion, however, is entirely untenable, and only arises 
from a total ignorance of economic relations. Setting 
the producer over against the purchaser is a novelty 
in national, or rather in political economy. Up to the 
present time we never knew that producers cease to 
be purchasers. In this connection, it was only known 
that under the control of moneyed production, through 
the constantly increasing application of machinery, the 
number of producers, and at the same time not the 
number of consumers, but their ability to buy, was 
diminished. Apart from the teachings of national 
economy, it is Intelligible to common-sense that an 
increasing number of producers is in no way synony- 
mous with a decreasing number of purchasers. On 
the contrary, if all have work, then all can buy, and 
business flourishes. 

J 

IV. MISCONCEPTION OF THE UTILITY OF DIVISION OF 

LABOR. 

The opponents say that industrial instruction will 
lead to a misconception of the utility of division of 
labor, and hence to a retrogression in civilization. 
What a inigJity charge 1 It means nothing less than that 
industrial instruction is inimical to improvement, to 
civilization. Let us at once remember that all true 



38 INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 

progress has always been declared opposed to civili- 
zation, so that this accusation is in no way new. Just 
as little is it new that the charge is a simple assertion 
without proof. 

It is hard to believe that any one could seriously 
assert that industrial instruction might lead to retro- 
gression in civilization. Like Crusoe on his desert 
island, every man would begin again to supply the 
whole circle of his needs. Machines would become 
rusty, railroads and telegraph lines would tumble to 
pieces, steamboats would be replaced by dugouts, the 
breech-loader w^ould be supplanted by bow and sling, 
while international commerce, travel, discovery, inves- 
tigation, and humanitarian efibrt would give place to 
the splendid still-life of the cave-dwellers, or to the 
state economy of the Lacustrians, as yet untouched by 
the craze of stock speculation. Indeed, if we begin 
to misunderstand the advantages of division of labor, 
we cannot foresee where we shall stop. 

But because in his youth a man has learned to guide 
the plane, the saw, the file, the drawing or the carving 
knife, is it inevitable that he will fail to understand 
this advantage ? Has it ever happened that those men 
who have learned half a dozen kinds of handicrafts, or, 
driven by necessity, have been obliged to use them, 
have misunderstood the advantages of division of labor, 
or become Crusoes ? Such people are just the ones to 
value division of labor, because they know how to 
appreciate more than one kind of labor. Because 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 39 

in our youth we learn several kinds of hand labor, 
shall we not continue to be modern men, with all our 
strong desires for the gratification of our highly de- 
veloped social needs ? 

Those who really fear that industrial instruction will 
lead to a misconception of the advantages of division 
of labor, appear to live in the exercise of a very artless 
and simple faith in the power of society to set aside at 
pleasure the laws of economic development. Men can 
do this as little as they can rise above the laws of na- 
ture. Both are inflexible, and sway with iron rule. 
While, however, man has made some progress in the 
control of nature's laws, he has hardly made a begin- 
ning in the control of economic laws whose governing 
power is in proportion to their immovability ; so much 
the more unfounded is the fear of a misconception of 
the utility of division of labor as one of the most effica- 
cious economic laws. "We might as reasonably doubt 
the benefit of the sun's heat on account of steam and 
electricity. Division of labor is not a hypothetical 
expression, to be accepted or rejected at pleasure. No ! 
it is a power which, like a power of nature, gains 
recognition in the economic world. Division of labor 
has swept away feudalism, and called civil society into 
life. It is a power which will bring civil society in its 
turn to the grave, and will create a new society, based 
upon organized manufacturing principles. 

It is hardly necessary, then, for us to be anxious to 
advocate the recognition of such a powerful force. 



40 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

A discussion of the great disadvantages of division 
of labor for the mental and physical development of 
workingmen appears to be a much more necessary 
task. Indeed, in manufactories, division of labor is 
carried so far, that a single workman can no longer 
construct a whole article, but only its thirtieth, fiftieth, 
one hundredth part, or perhaps the third or tenth part 
of a part. 

It is only necessary to refer to watch-making, in 
which nearly every single part is constructed in special 
factories, and the labor of every part in each factory is 
again divided among many hands. The laborer no 
longer makes a part of a watch, but only a fraction of 
a part. In all branches of large industry the same 
principle of division of labor is observed. By this 
means, labor has become vastly profitable, and labor 
products astonishingly complete ; but the laborer has 
become part of a machine, and the work has lost all its 
spirit. " Subdivision of labor is the murder of a peo- 
ple," says an English writer. Said Adam Smith, in 
1766: "A man who spends his whole life in the per- 
formance of small, simple operations has no oppor- 
tunity to exercise his understanding. He generally 
becomes as stupid and as ignorant as it is possible for 
a human creature to be." Yet at that time, division 
of labor, compared with its present state, had but a 
very limited development. 

Would it not be a meritorious work to instruct our 
youth in the construction of whole articles, and thus 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 41 

overcome the stupefying influence of division of labor, 
whose advantages our present civilization cannot and 
will not dispense with? Does not wisdom, as well as 
duty, command us to give those thousands who may- 
be condemned to spend their lives in the tread-mill 
course on simple, or, perhaps, upon a single spiritless 
operation, an insight into the attractive, satisfying, and 
educative side of labor? 



42 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PLAUSIBLE AND LEGAL OBJECTIONS TO INDUS- 
TRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

I. THE child's INCLINATION FOR ACTIVITY IS SUFFI- 
CIENTLY CULTIVATED IN THE FAMILY. 

A CORRECT solution of the problem as to the neces- 
sity for industrial instruction in public education is 
only possible on the ground of an exact knowledge of 
social relations and their influence upon family life. 
The knowledge of these relations is, however, to edu- 
cated people mostly a terra incognita^ because they 
trouble themselves but little with the study of political 
economy, and still less with that branch of it which 
treats of social relations. This is explicable and ex- 
cusable on the ground that this study has no direct 
practical benefit, and on every side is attended with 
difficulties. 

Out of this ignorance of economic social relations 
arises the lamentation, over the decline of the beautiful 
customs of the Middle Ages, according to which the 
son learned mostly from the father his own art or handi- 
craft ; and the daughter, even in the noble families, was 
instructed by the mother in the management of the 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 43 

household. With the same reason, we might lament the 
decline of knighthood of Latin and Catechism schools, 
of the guilds, and indeed of all mediaeval conditions. 
All these institutions were merely the expression of me- 
diaeval social relations, in the widest sense of the word. 
These lamented customs in particular were nothing but 
the result of the manner of labor in mediaeval times, 
which, being confined to small trades, was intended for 
the circle of the home, the village, or the town, and 
through which {i. e., manner of labor) the products 
were strictly regulated. In proportion as the mediaeval 
system of production disappeared, and made way for 
modern methods, so the custom of the son learning a 
handicraft from his father declined. In the Middle 
Ages, the son could very well learn a trade from his 
father, because the father generally pursued indepen- 
dently some trade or profession ; but at present, among 
the majority of fathers, this is no longer the case. In 
the Middle Ages, the son learned a handicraft from the 
father, which was desirable, as it offered a certain 
means of existence and a respectable social position, 
and because it was often somewhat difficult to secure a 
footing in any other trade or profession. In no case 
was a change so advantageous as the simple continua- 
tion of the fraternal employment. In consequence of 
division of labor and the introduction of machinery in 
large manufactories, all this is changed to-day. No one 
who appreciates existing economic relations will pipe a 
dirge over the decline of mediaeval customs resulting 



44 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

from medieval systems of labor, but through the legis- 
lature aud the laws of the country he will seek to se- 
cure to public education conditions adapted to existing 
economic relations. There are, it is true, people who 
believe in the wisdom of returning to mediaeval systems 
of labor, and who will support efforts in this direction, 
but the folly and impossibility of carrying out such an 
idea are too patent to need a word of discouragement. 

Although individual opponents of industrial instruc- 
tion themselves acknowled2:e that domestic instruction 
fails to awaken the child's love for labor, yet they as- 
sert that the instruction of children in labor does not 
belong to the school, but on principle to the family. 
Unfortunately, they forget to give the chief i^easons 
for this, their principal demand. Perhaps this, also, 
would have its difficulties, and very probably it would 
appear that the arguments which relegate manual 
instruction to the family would show more conclu- 
sively that the mental instruction of the children is 
also the business of the family, rather than of the 
state. In this way, reasons for the abolition of the 
public school might be furnished, and the darling 
wish of certain people might approach a little nearer 
realization. 

Here, also, we have contradiction and inconsistency, 
for the same men who assert that industrial instruction 
is the work of the family, demand of the school that it 
shall introduce the cliild to the real world, and shall 
elevate aud spiritualize labor, and thus awaken pleasure 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 45 

in it. If industrial instruction becomes on principle 
the affair of the family, how is the school to spiritualize 
labor ? By what better means than by labor can one be 
introduced into the real world? How can labor be 
better elevated than by being introduced into the 
school, and how can it be better spiritualized than by 
being united with theoretical instruction ? Every other 
elevation of labor must lead to inactive enthusiasm, 
which is, of course, much more comfortable than action, 
and any other spiritualization of work must, on the part 
of the teacher, remain mere dead verbiage, and must 
lead the pupil to idle chatter. If they have babbled 
about labor, the children will believe they have really 
worked. 

Individual opponents to industrial instruction assert 
that in a well-regulated household there is no lack of 
suitable work for children. Hence, the housekeeping 
of a large class of factory laborers and that of a great 
part of the laborers in home industry, as well as that 
of artisans, is called disorderly ; for, as a fact, in those 
households, suitable employment for the children does 
fail, and can not in any way be provided. If a man 
does not know, or if he ignores social relations, to what 
false conclusions may he be led ! If factory laborers 
are constantly from home, how can they in any suitable 
manner find employment for their children ? How can 
the laborers in many branches of home industry suitably 
employ their children at home ? For example, in weav- 
ing, when all the winding and spooling of yarn are done 



46 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

by machinery in the factories ? And where this is not 
the case, can all the children be employed in winding 
and spooling, or is winding and spooling such suitable 
employment for children of all ages and capacities that 
the opponents of industrial instruction would choose 
it for their own children ? Since artisans must spend 
almost every waking moment at their own work, how 
can they employ the children in suitable labor ? The 
discharge of household duties does not suffice to provide 
suitable employment for all the children, and is not 
adapted to the needs of all. But why do we speak only 
of the so-called lower classes in society ? What suitable 
domestic employment can be provided for the children 
of the higher classes, since among them the household 
labor is performed almost entirely by servants ? Con- 
sistency must oblige the opponents of industrial instruc- 
tion to consider the households of the higher classes 
also disorderly and ill-regulated. We do not take this 
ground, but, in justice to the working classes, it de- 
serves at least a passing mention. 

While a portion of the opponents of industrial instruc- 
tion themselves acknowledge that domestic education 
does not awaken in the children a love of labor, others 
oppose industrial instruction, in that they show that 
under normal conditions, if the children are trained at a 
sufficiently early age, labor in the family does awaken a 
pleasure in work. Under one form or another, this 
objection is made by all the opponents of industrial 
instruction. Individual opponents, infected with the 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 47 

universal social reform idea, show that already the 
working classes labor too much rather than too little, 
and, besides this, are very badly fed. 

This last proposition is at any rate correct. The 
laboring classes are not at the same time the enjoying 
classes, although Christian teaching declares that "he 
who does not work, shall not eat " ; but it is a mistake 
to say that under normal conditions the work in the 
family awakens a pleasure in labor. 

The normal, i. e., the usual case is rather that the 
family represses the child's inclination for activity, or 
at best cultivates it in a one-sided manner. 

"We do not on this account complain of the family, 
for we also consider the family of the present day as a 
product of existing social and economic conditions which 
lie beyond the province of the individual family. We 
merely assert facts. 

What is life ? We do not know ; we know only its 
appearances. According to those appearances, how- 
ever, life is motion, — motion of muscles and nerves. 
What is child life? Quickest movement, because 
quickest development. Hence the irrepressible instinct 
of children towards movement and activity ; hence 
their happiness if they can employ themselves, and 
their unhappiness if they can not. Naturally this in- 
stinctive activity is as yet entirely unregulated and 
purposeless ; according to the conditions of the child's 
surroundings, it may become a creative or a destructive 
impulse. 



48 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

The view of life, according to which mankind is bad 
from youth up, presupposes an inl5orn destructive 
instinct. We assert, however, that among normal 
human beings there is no inborn destructive impulse, 
but rather an inherent instinct for activity, which, if it 
be not educated into a creative power, easily takes the 
direction of a destructive influence, which is merely 
activity with a negative result. 

For the rest, many and various pleasing and praise- 
worthy impulses of the childish soul lie at the bottom 
of what are usually termed destructive instincts. The 
child does not love movement merely as the expres- 
sion of its own strength and life, but he loves it in 
things. Hence his pleasure in everything that has 
motion, and his effort to produce motion in motion- 
less and inanimate objects. For this reason, the child 
has a much earlier interest in plants than in stones, 
and a still earlier interest in animals than in plants. 
Hence his efforts to make things walk, fall down, get 
up, fly, etc. But our beautiful playthings do not 
stand the child's experiments ; they are destroyed. 
The child destroys them, however, not for the mere 
pleasure of destroying, but because of his pleasure 
in motion. Because the child loves movement, it 
also loves change, which indeed is only a form of 
movement, and this also the child loves not only in 
his own person, but in things. Objects must change ; 
they shall not remain as they are. In his efforts to 
procure a change, that is, to make something new, the 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 49 

child tears the legs off the doll, removes the wheels 
from the wagon, and kneads the wax figures out of 
shape. The instinct of work and construction, being 
yet entirely raw, demands employment and guidance, 
and destroys because it cannot create, or because the 
unsuitable playthings can bear no change nor recon- 
struction. For early childhood, those playthings are 
the best which admit of the most changes, while those 
with which the child can do nothing without injury to 
himself or them are comparatively worthless. 

Finally, the child destroys things because the out- 
side is not sufficient to satisfy ; he must see the inside, 
must learn the nature of things. The instinct of 
knowledge and investigation is beginning to move him. 

A normal child, whose instinct of activity is in some 
degree under control, will never . destroy for the mere 
pleasure of destroying, but always from some higher 
motive. Hence this tendency towards destruction must 
not be suppressed, but trained, and it will return to 
mankind fruit a thousand-fold. 

As little as we acknowledge an inborn destructive 
tendency among normal human beings, so little do we 
admit an inborn tendency to laziness. Laziness (i. e., 
a dread of every kind of physical and mental exertion) 
contradicts the laws of physiology. It is a physico- 
pathologic condition, and menaces life itself. But lazi- 
ness, as a dislike for useful manual labor, arises from 
the suppression and non-improvement of tlie tendency to 
activity in children, and from a lack of respect for 
4 



50 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTIOlSr. 

manual labor in the practice of domestic and social 
life. As John Stuart Mill says : So long as the results 
of labor sre divided in almost completely reversed rela- 
tions, and the greatest share falls to those who have 
never worked at all, the next greatest to those whose 
work is for the most part merely nominal, and so on, 
until at last the most fatiguing and exhaustive physical 
labor cannot with certainty be depended upon even to 
gain the most common necessaries of life, — so long as 
this relation between labor and the distribution of prop- 
erty prevails practically in social life, so long will peo- 
ple seek to avoid labor. Laziness, as a dread of the 
labor which benefits society, is therefore a social patho- 
logic manifestation. However, at present, we are only 
interested in the cause of the malady, which has its 
origin in the non-employment and non-improvement of 
the child's natural inclination for activity. 

In regard to this cause of idleness, it is truly surpris- 
ing that laziness does not exist to a greater extent in 
our social life, for as a result of existing social rela- 
tions, the childish tendency to activity is almost entirely 
suppressed, or at least has received so little guidance 
in the direction of creation, that it is surprising that 
men are not more destructive than they are. How is 
it with the education of children, in the greatest 
number of cases, among factory laborers, small farmers, 
and the workers in small handicrafts? Both father 
and mother must pursue their trades. There is hardly 
time for attention to the most necessary duties, to say 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 51 

nothing of education. This explains the fact that mor- 
tahty among the children of the poorer classes is three 
times as great as among those of the richer. Under 
such conditions, it is plainly useless to talk of the right 
guidance and development of the instinct of activity 
and the proper employment of children. Who has 
time for these things? The children are left almost 
entirely to themselves. 

Even if there were time, who has the necessary in- 
telligence and skill? In the public schools, the girls 
receive no instruction concernino; the education of 
children, and schools for the higher development of 
women are as yet a beautiful dream. 

[True of Germany, and to an extent of Switzerland.] 

Finally, even if parents possessed time and intelli- 
gence sufficient for the right guidance and satisfying of 
the child's instinct for activity, in nhiety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, means, material, opportunity, and place 
would be wanting. 

Supposing the employment makes a noise, then the 
papa, the next-room lodger, or the tenants below wil? 
be disturbed, or the landlord will not allow it. Sup- 
posing it makes no noise, but perhaps some untidiness, 
then on account of the room and furniture it cannot be 
allowed. For the pursuit of certam employments, place 
and light are necessary, but in small rooms both of 
these are wanting. Older children need tools and 
materials ; they cost . money, and cannot always be 
procured.' In the open air it is as bad as in the 



52 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

house, for there is no place where children can em- 
ploy themselves. 

In most cities we have beautiful promenades, but in 
most cities we have not a single place for children's 
plays or employments. Sit on the bench ! Do not 
run on the grass ! Gather no grass or flowers ! Don't 
touch the sand or stones ! These are the commands 
which must constantly be given to children in the 
beautiful, well-kept promenades. What tiresome 
promenades for children ! They can make nothing, 
can do nothing ; and they would so gladly make a 
hill of sand, dig a hole, or lay out a garden ! Every- 
where the hindrances described hero to suitable em- 
pl oyment for children meet us ; not only among the 
lower, but in the middle and higher classes. 

Where is the merchant's, the official's, or the pro- 
fessor's famil}'' in which all conditions for the guidance 
and gratification of the childish inclination for activity 
are possible? Almost always, intelligence and capabil- 
ity, frequently time and not infrequently opportunity 
and place, are wanting. Everywhere, wherever our 
changeful life has led us, we have found a lack of 
suitable employment for children. Are not the many 
expensive playthings, with which children can do abso- 
lutely nothing, a proof of the lack of suitable employ- 
ment ? Or is the literature for children from seven to 
twelve years of age a suitable employment for them ? 
Novel-reading children of this ao:e are the result of a-n 
entirely arbitrary, unnatural education. The best chil- 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 53 

dreD's literature that we have is far from being good 
enough to be considered suitable employment for chil- 
dren. 

Be still ! Go out ! Take a book ! Learn something ! 
In even good families these are the commands by 
which unemployed children are guided. 

If, perhaps, the children demand some employment, 
they are met with, You can't have that ! Leave me in 
peace ! I must work ! I have no time ! 

In this way is the instinct of activity suppressed 
(especially for the first six years) , or left entirely un- 
satisfied and unguided. 

What is the result? The children become inert and 
unsteady, and acquire a hundred bad habits and faults. 
Nearly all wrong habits and faults of children are 
owing to lack of suitable occupation. In school, the 
best means of discipline is to employ the children suit- 
ably. The teacher who understands how to employ 
the pupil, and by tlie employment to keep him inter- 
ested, has hardly any need to use any other means of 
discipline ; while the one who does not understand this 
art, is unable with all his severity to curb the unman- 
ageable, idle, stupid scamps. 

Employ the children suitably, L e., according to their 
powers and inclinations, and hundreds of pedagogical 
arts and tricks for preventing and subduing moral delin- 
quencies will be unnecessary. 

That the children of the laboring classes work too 
much is quite true ; it is only wrong to assert this fact 



54 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

as a proof that in the family the pleasure ia labor is 
sufficiently awakened. Do we not know that in the 
case of too much work, the pleasure is changed into 
aversion? As we have just shown, in these children 
the instinct of activity is stifled before they are fitted 
for special labor. Is the same monotonous labor, 
which, year in, year out, the family is able to furnish, 
according to the capacity and needs of the child? 
Certainly not ! It can awaken no pleasure, but must 
create dislike. Then how many families are capable 
of furnishing their children regular employment? 

And if, as an opponent of industrial instruction 
mentions, it happens that an excess of work is united 
with want, will that create pleasure in labor ? Cer- 
tainly 7iot. Besides, domestic labor lacks one of the 
most miportant elements of pleasure, viz., the society 
of laborers of the same age. It lacks also the attractive 
method and theory which would make it significant 
and interesting. The family does not understand the 
art of instruction ; the instruction does not proceed 
methodically from the near to the remote, from the 
simple to the complex, hence the work becomes to 
the children either distasteful, because the labor is 
beyond their strength, or it is tedious, because it 
afibrds too little activity. For everything which ex- 
ceeds our physical or psychical powers creates dis- 
like, while everything that does not demand sufficient 
activity becomes tedious ; we must avoid both ex- 
tremes. Without theory, labor degenerates into me- 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 55 

chanical, uncomprehended, uninteresting activity ; for 
one is only interested in what he understands, and 
one is elevated by labor only when he is conscious 
that he accomplishes it according to underlying laws. 
Finally, domestic labor, because of its one-sidedness, 
does not require the exercise of heart, taste, and im- 
agination. These must be disregarded, because there 
is merely an economic and not a pedagogical aim. 
For this important reason, labor in the family cannot 
be sufficiently attractive for the children. 

Labor in the family can, therefore, awaken little or 
no delight, hut, on the contrary, it often creates abun- 
dant disgust. Instead of satisfying the chiWs incli- 
nation for activity, it much more frequently suppresses 
it, or not infrequently misguides it; and in consequence 
of our social conditions, it is not at all capable of rightly 
guiding or educating. 

Granting, however, that the home does develop and 
train the child's inclination for activity, still we cannot 
dispense with labor in the schools, because it belongs 
to the harmonious development of mankind, and is an 
important means of training and education. 

II. THE FATHER SHOULD INSTRUCT THE SON IN HIS 
HANDICRAFT. 

This objection is raised against industrial instruction. 
They say the father understands his handicraft and its 
needs, hence he will be the best teacher for his son. 
This argument entirely misses its aim, for industrial 



56 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

instruction in the public school does not and can not 
imply instruction in any particular kind of handicraft. 
Industrial instruction and professional or trade instruc- 
tion are here confused. The objection in no way 
touches industrial instruction, but meets the opponent 
of industrial instruction who at the same time is an 
earnest advocate of special trade instruction. If, in- 
deed, the father were best fitted to instruct the son in 
his handicraft, of what use is departmental training? 
Why is there a call for school workshops, professional 
museums, and other institutions of this nature? The 
question, indeed, of professional training is answered 
in the simplest manner. 

Yes, if it only were. But it is not, for a proposi- 
tion which presupposes the practice of mediaeval small 
trades, will not solve either the question of profes- 
sional training or of industrial instruction. Diester- 
weg, who in 1851 raised a similar objection to industrial 
instruction, would hardly advance it now, if he saw how 
the manufactories have increased and small trades have 
diminished. During the last thirty years the indus- 
trial development of Germany has made such progress 
that she has outstripped France, and to-day is abreast 
with England. Now, if, notwithstanding the com- 
pletely changed economic conditions, the same objec- 
tion should be advanced, this only proves that not only 
the Bourbons, but other people as well, possess the 
peculiarity of forgetting nothing, and also of learning 
nothing. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 57 

In the foregoing, we have explained why the son can 
not learn a handicraft from the father, and why he does 
not, even if he could. We refer to what has previously 
been said. Here we make only a few remarks. 

How often does the son learn a handicraft from the 
father? Eather seldom. And if he does learn it, is 
the Either always the best instructor ? As a rule, no. 

Besides, does the mechanic understand the theory of 
labor? Usually not. Then, what is the nature of his 
instruction? A mechanical imitation of a pattern or 
copy, similar to former methods of teaching and learn- 
ing writing. 

And finally, if the father always instructed the son 
in his handicraft, to what should we come? 

Directly to the condition of caste, and of Chinese 
civilization. 

Verily, a brilliant prospect ! 

III. COMPULSORY INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION WOULD IN- 
TERFERE WITH THE parents' RIGHTS. 

Industrial instruction should be left to the free judg- 
ment of parents, for if it should be made compulsory, 
it would be an illegal interference with parental rights, 
and an encroachment upon their personal freedom. So 
say the opponents of industrial instruction. Although 
Diesterweg himself raised this objection, it is neverthe- 
less untenable, for if the state (as a totality of all the 
citizens) fulfils the duties which it is impossible for 
individuals to discharge, there can be no infringement 



58 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

of personal rights. We have, however, shown that 
the family is not in a condition to properly educate 
the children in labor. But, admitting that the family 
may be capable of instructing the children, it could 
not be considered an infringement upon parental rights, 
if a majority of the citizens should find that the state 
could better perform these important tasks than each 
individual separately, and if the majority should decide 
that the state should undertake this department of 
education, as well as theoretical instruction. Besides, 
we may be perfectly at rest. The objection to com- 
pulsory industrial instruction, on the ground of inter- 
ference with personal freedom, would be much fainter 
than that which has been and is still being advanced 
against mental instruction in our present schools. In 
any case, it would not be raised by the laborer and 
mechanic, in whose name the schoolmen at present 
make it effective. They would be heartily glad if 
their children were employed with hand labor in the 
schools, and so better prepared for life than they are 
or can be by existing school instruction. We have 
not yet learned that the introduction of industrial in- 
struction for girls has in any place raised such a storm 
as has upon occasion raged against the introduction of 
a new method of teaching religion, history, or natural 
science. Just as little will industrial instruction for boys 
raise a storm. As to the necessity for labor for all 
mankind, there can be no difference of opinion ; while 
in matters of religion, history, philosophy, systems of 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 59 

teaching, etc., the field for discussion and disagree- 
ment is abundantly large. Industrial instruction is 
throughout a neutral territory, in which no father's pri- 
vate convictions will be attacked, except it may be on 
the ground that his son is too good for labor. Whether 
society is obliged to conform to such a barbarous 
opinion may be decided without consulting the promi- 
nent publicist. 

We are accustomed to hearing charges against the 
school, on the ground of arbitrary encroachments upon 
parental rights, either from people who are opponents 
of the modern state, or from those who understand 
nothing of the necessary foundations of a common- 
wealth, or from those egotists who derive benefit from 
a commonwealth, but are willing to sacrifice nothing 
for it. It would be, however, extremely surprising 
and directly against the interests of the teacher's posi- 
tion, as well as against the interests of the school, if 
the advocates of the school should play this trump 
against industrial instruction. Is it not plain that it 
can with greater right be advanced against theoretic 
instruction? This objection is really an old rusty 
weapon brought out of a medigeval armory. Indus- 
trial instruction can be left to the judgment of the 
parents as little as can theoretic instruction. 

Why are all instruction and education not left to 
the choice of the family ? 

Certainly for the following general reasons : — 

1. Because the parents have for this work neither 



60 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

time, desire, skill, means, nor place, and because it 
would be a waste of human strength and a pedagogic 
crime to educate each child alone. For the education 
and training of each child one man would be needed, 
and also, one man would be required to educate 
another. 

We have, however, shown that parents lack time, 
desire, skill, means, and place for the employment of 
their children ; and it is clear that it would be in 
the highest degree unprofitable and unpedagogic, even 
quite impossible, to suitably employ each child sepa- 
rately. With the same outlay of time, strength, and 
means required for the employment of one, twenty 
can be employed ; and besides, children are really the 
best educators for each other. 

2. Because the highest interests of society demand 
that every man shall possess a certain amount of 
mental training, as well as those notions and ideas 
which are necessary for the preservation of society. 
A common social life without a certain standard of 
education for all the members, and without a common 
world of ideas and thoughts, is quite impossible. 
Every society in which the differences in education 
between its individual members are too great, falls to 
pieces ; and every society in which the mass of com- 
mon ideas and thoughts becomes too small, or where 
among individuals the ideas and thoughts are too 
different, must be dissolved. 

Modern society, which does not exist by conquest 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 61 

and plunder, but is based upon labor, demands for 
its own interests that every one shall possess a certain 
amount of practical education in labor, and shall have 
a general understanding of the whole world of ideas 
and thoughts which are based upon labor, because 
those ideas and thoughts resulting from hand labor are 
most important and indispensable for the successful 
social life of mankind. Hence, society must manage 
that each of its members shall be able to acquire those 
ideas and opinions. Its interests demand this. For 
this reason, industrial instruction cannot be left to the 
judgment of the family ; it must become the business 
of the state, and must be compulsory for all. This is 
the principle. How this principle is to be transposed 
in the practice, is another question. We are not so 
unreasonable as to advocate at present the introduc- 
tion of industrial instruction as a practical demand of 
politics, since at present teachers lack the power, 
facilities, will, and intelligence necessary for the ac- 
complishment of such a measure. But what we 
advance as a requirement of the present is, that the 
educational authorities shall raise, support, and for- 
ward efforts for the promotion of the demands of 
industrial instruction by means of the state. 

If the state does this, it only promotes its own 
interests, for it is entirely wrong to interpret the ex- 
pression " the interest of the state " in education as 
applicable only to purely mental culture, especially as 
purely mental culture is a nonentity, and man is not to 



62 INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION". 

be divided by pedagogy into body and spirit, but to 
be comprehended as a unit. Besides, pedagogic state 
practice has long ago overthrown the position that it 
must concern itself merely with the mental cultivation 
of its members, since it has long ago introduced gym- 
nastics. The principle, if indeed it ever existed, has 
been violated, and we cannot ask that the practice be 
continued. Gymnastics serve essentially for physical 
development. Now, if industrial instruction be de- 
manded as an extended means to the same end, it can 
not be opposed with a reference to recognized and 
uniform principles, but must be contested with plaus- 
ible "reasons. 

" Since one aim is set before the whole state, then 
all its members must necessarily have one and the 
same education. The care of this education must be 
a common one, and cannot be left to individuals." So 
said Aristotle. He did not say it, however, in regard 
to mental education, and, indeed, it is satisfactorily 
known that the Greeks bestowed even greater atten- 
tion upon physical than upon mental development. 

But the state has not merely such an interest in 
industrial instruction that it could without injury get 
rid of it, but it has the interest of self-preservation, 
which is indeed synonymous with the duty of self- 
preservation. Furthermore, it is the duty of the 
state to furnish an education in labor to all those 
who, beyond their physical and mental powers, pos- 
sess no means of supporting existence. For the sup- 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 63 

port of our opinions, we can cite an authority (if, 
indeed, authorities are necessary) , to whom no greater 
can Le opposed, viz., Pestalozzi. In his views upon 
industry, education, and politics, he expresses him- 
self as follows : " Property is an artificial creation of 
society to elevate and advance the welfare of our race, 
by means of the greater productiveness of the earth. ^ 
As the result of natural, necessary arrangements for 
its security, this property has made the great majority 
of mankind propertyless ; and the greater and more 
refined the artificial conditions of the human race 
become, which arise and must arise for the security 
of property and all prerogatives and enjoyments of its 
acquisition and possession, so much the more must 
the number of poor and propertyless men in the 
country increase, and so much the more certainly out 
of these conditions must arise a state of affairs in 
which nothing for the guarantee and preservation of 
human existence remains to the great majority of the 
people but the application of their physical and men- 
tal powers, upon which they must depend as their 
only means of self-preservation. But this resource, 
from its nature, remains without beneficial results to 
the propertyless man, so long as it is not accom- 
panied with arrangements and means that may secure 
to him a certain degree of cultivation of his powers 
and talents, which stands in satisfactory relation to 

^ Pestalozzi's Works, Vol. IX., p. 100. 



64 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

that artificial power and skill which are necessary in 
satisfying the essential needs of human existence. 

" So long as this is not the case, so long as this com- 
mon dependence upon his powers and talents is not 
accompanied by such arrangements for the develop- 
ment and cultivation of the same, then it is itself illu- 
sory and deceptive. The powers and talents of human 
nature are transformed into skill only by means of a 
sufficient development and cultivation calculated to cre- 
ate capability for man in a social condition, which may 
be used and applied in such a way that its results may 
be regarded by the propertyless man as a compensa- 
tion for the lost shares of the profits of the earth. His 
claim to a sufficient means for the development and cul- 
tivation of these powers is therefore indisputably his 
civil and social right. It is his only visible means for 
securing the essential needs of his human existence, 
and the only way by which, in harmony with the public 
right of the civilized world, he can penetrate into the 
art and means for the great world-movement of self- 
preservation [struggle for existence] , and of the gen- 
eral manifestation of the well-being of our race. On 
the wide sea of this world-movement, it is the only 
point at which he is allowed to throw out his hook, and 
to try whether in the million-fold riches swimming 
around him some small fish may perhaps desire and 
bite at his dead bait. 

" Meanwhile the claim of the propertyless man to social 
aid for the development of his powers and talents is not 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. G5 

only for himself an indisputably social life; it is quite 
as indispensable for the man of property. Without 
the recognition of this right, the artificial condition of 
civilization itself has no just and natural basis." 

It might be objected that in the foregoing, Pesta- 
lozzi does not really demand that the state secm-e 
training in labor ; but there can be no doubt that, by 
the training of the physical powers in skill, Pestalozzi 
understands training in labor. All Pestalozzi's work 
goes to show that he has never regarded the education 
of man as merely mental training, but as training of 
the whole man. The one-sided mental trainins; of our 
present pedagogy is entirely foreign to his compre- 
hension of the subject. Again and again he demanded 
harmonious development, and side by side with moral 
and mental training constantly emphasized training in 
labor and art. To him, harmonious education without 
education in labor was inconceivable. In the most 
bitter and drastic manner, he complains that European 
governments have done nothing for the industrial edu- 
cation of the people. He says : " It is true that what 
no father would fail to do for his son, what no master 
would fail to do for his apprentice, the government 
has failed to do for its people. In regard to the train- 
ing in skill which a man needs in order to attain an 
inner satisfaction by the good management of his essen- 
tial affairs, no European nation enjoys even a trace of 
public or general government influence ; there is no 
public training in skilfulness except for manslaughter, 

5 



66 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

in behalf of which the military organization devours 
everything that is due to the people, or rather that 
the people owe to themselves." ^ 

Here Pestalozzi very definitely demands that the 
state shall undertake to provide for the education of 
the people in labor. He will not have this provision 
limited to the lower orders, but will have it extended 
to all the people. The legal foundation of this de- 
mand is especially interesting, for the reason that the 
previous development of private fortunes, as well as 
investigations into original property by Laveley,^ 
have proved Pestalozzi to be right in his comprehen- 
sion of the rights of property. On this account, Pes- 
talozzi would, more than ever before, demand state 
education in labor. 

IV. THE RURAL POPULATION REQUIRE NO INDUSTRIAL 
EDUCATION. 

The opponents of industrial instruction raise the above 
objection, because they do not or will not know that it is 
not only a counterbalance for one-sided mental culture 
in youthful education, but it deals with mental devel- 
opment and character building. They say, " Where 
children have a long distance to go to school, and where 
work about the farm is to be performed, there is no 
danger of excessive mental development and physical 

' How Gertrude teaches her Children, from the original text. 
Pub. Karl Riedel, Vienna, 1887. 

^ Property, and its Primitive Forms, Paris, G. Balliere, 1874. 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 67 

stunting ; at the most this danger only exists in cities. ^ 
Furthermore, what benefit will it be to the farmer 
children to learn to plane and glue, to turn and carve? 
They do not need it at all, and later, cannot use it. 
What they need, however, is to thrash, mow, sow, 
and plough, and this they will not learn by industrial 
instruction." 

Both objections leave untouched the educational value 
of industrial instruction for mind and character build- 
ing, and neither disputes its worth as a counterbalance 
for a one-sided mental development. They are, there- 
fore, plausible objections, without any fundamental 
signification. And what plausibility it is ! 

The first indirectly admits the necessity for industrial 
instruction in cities, and leaves entirely unanswered 
the difficult questions whether a one-sided mental devel- 
opment does not in every case injure physical develop- 
ment ; whether a one-sided mental development in 
childhood does not injure the whole mental develop- 
ment; whether that is the right pedagogy which 
almost exclusively cultivates the mental powers, and 
leaves the culture of the physical powers to accident ; 
and whether the present mental development in the 
schools is the most complete and the best. 

What will industrial instruction benefit the country 
children, and to what purpose will they employ their 
learning ? What a question ! One can hardly under- 

1 Swiss Ed. Journal, 3.884. 



68 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

stand how it can be put by schoolmen and by people 
who have any knowledge of life. Let us turn the 
lance, and ask how theoretical, abstract, mental in- 
struction benefits country children, and to what pur- 
pose will they apply their knowledge? How will 
geography, history, grammar, and poetry benefit them, 
and to what purpose will they apply this learning? 
Truly, if only those studies could be pursued in the 
school which would benefit the country children, which 
would ofier them as future peasants direct material 
advantage for practical small farming, then there would 
remain littW more than the mediseval triad, — read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic. Since the opponents of 
industrial instruction inquire after the direct material 
advantao;es resultino; from training in hand labor, we 
must also inquire after the direct material benefits re- 
sulting from the present subjects of instruction. 

It is clear as the sun that, on the basis of direct 
practical benefit and direct practical realization of the 
same, industrial instruction must be preferred to theo- 
retic abstract instruction, for, especially for the small 
farmers, this benefit is, without further demonstration, 
apparent to every man. 

Poor industrial instruction in general is in a bad way. 
On the one side, it is opposed because it is of no mate- 
rial benefit to the scholar ; on the other, because it 
makes pupils and parents too materialistic and avari- 
cious, and threatens the ideal conception of life. If, 
by skilful management, industrial instruction escapes 



rNDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 69 

the Scylla of uselessness, it immediately falls into the 
Chary bdis of profit ; escape is impossible. The Jew 
must be burned ! 

Until now, personal material benefit has never deter- 
mined the choice of subjects of instruction, but the 
choice has been relatively determined by their edu- 
cational, moral, and social values. Personal material 
benefit can never be made a general criterion for the 
reception or the rejection of a branch of instruction 
in public education, because that which benefits the 
individual may injure society, and, conversely, that 
which is very important to society may be of indiffer- 
ent worth to the individual. Thus instruction in his- 
tory as well as teaching in the whole domain of social 
duties is for state and society of the greatest impor- 
tance, but for the individual completely useless, unless 
he expects to become a teacher of these sul)jects. In 
private education, personal material benefit may deter- 
mine one's choice ; in public education, on the con- 
trary, it only comes under consideration in so far as it 
is of benefit to society; only the latter is determinative. 
Social benefit, however, is often covered by moral and 
pedagogical [educational] utility. Even in private 
education, the direct material benefit is a very uncer- 
tain standard. Whoever applies it to subjects of public 
instruction only, shows that he has never reflected upon 
the difference between private and public instruction, 
and upon the principle determining the latter. 

Industrial instruction can not be opposed on the 



70 INDUSTRIAL ESTSTRUCTIOlSr. 

ground of private education, hut only on the basis of 
public education, and one must present social, moral, 
and pedagogic arguments against it or remain silent. 

Hence, the question regarding the future application 
of what has been learned can be no reason for the 
rejection of a subject of instruction from the state 
school, because the modern state rightly knows no 
fixed classes and castes, and no one knows what places 
in life the children must and will fill. A subject of 
instruction in the state school can, therefore, only be 
tested on the ground of benefit which it can and does 
give to the individual for his life in society. It cannot 
be estimated according to the benefit which the indi- 
vidual, as a member of a certain class, will receive 
from it. Whoever estimates it in this way, removes 
himself from the foundations of the state, viz., equal- 
ity of civil rights, and places himself on the basis of 
the mediaeval state, viz., difierence of classes and in- 
equality of rights. With the cessation of fixed classes 
in the state, the education for them must also cease, 
and indeed, in the public school it has ceased in so 
far that subjects of instruction are no longer considered 
in regard to the advantage resulting to classes. If we 
wish to estimate the subjects of instruction in the 
school for study on the basis of advantage for laborers, 
hand-workers, and farmers, of the majority of the nation, 
then everything must give place to industrial instruc- 
tion, for to ail these men, labor, skill, and intelligence in 
these things are of the greatest importance. On the 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION, 71 

other hand, if we estimate subjects of instruction ac- 
cording to the benefit which they bring to the indi- 
vidual for life in society, again industrial instruction 
for these classes must be placed at the head. Out of 
respect for the reading world, we do not trouble our- 
selves with extravagance, such as, from industrial in- 
struction one does not learn to labor, ^ for they are 
too absurd to be disputed. We might as well say that 
by instruction in reading, we do not learn to read, nor 
by instruction in swimming, to swim, etc., etc. Upon 
what educational, moral, and just grounds could one 
support an argument in advocating the education of a 
laborer's child for a future laborer, the child of a farmer 
for a future farmer, the child of a mechanic for a 
future mechanic? To-day, when legal barriers between 
individual classes do not exist, and any man can easily 
pass from one over into the other, — to-day, when 
every man carries the marshal's staff, so to speak, to 
the social step-ladder in his pocket, would not such an 
education of youth be the purest Chineseism, an op- 
pression of youth and a sin against the human mind ? 
Have not the majority of great men come from the 
lower classes? "Were not the great manufacturers of 
to-day laborers ? Has it not been ascertained that by 
far the greater part of persoiaal property does not go 
down to the third generation ? ^ Because of the great 

* Meyer, Handicraft Instruction. 

* The Labor Question, by Fred. A. Lange. Winterthur, by Bleuler, 
Hansheer & Co., 1875. 



72 



INDUSTRIAL iJSTSTRUCTIOlSr. 



tendency toward change in our social strata, labor 
becomes an anchor of safety even to the rich. 

If it is specially asserted that industrial instruction 
is of no value to the children of farmers, then we must 
ask, what is open to the farmer burdened with debt, or 
even the well-to-do land-owner with three or four sons ? 
Will he give each a farm or capital sufficient for one 
to live on the interest, or will he have them all 
study? All those farmers' sons who are not eldest 
born, and have several brothers and sisters, and whose 
parents are not rich, must apply themselves to industry. 
The little property cannot bear division ; it would 
no longer support its owner. Even if it were large 
enough to allow it, division must be guarded against, 
because in farming, as in other industries, only the 
large business is profitable and capable of standing com- 
petition. Now, provided industrial instruction should 
onl}^ be regarded as a general professional preparation, 
even then for a large number of farmers' sons it would 
be of great benefit. It is also advantageous to those 
sons of farmers who devote themselves to farming, in 
that it makes them acquainted with industrial labor, 
teaches them to love and respect it, enlarges their in- 
tellectual horizon, and induces greater mental activity. 
For the immediate execution of repairs upon farming 
implements and household furniture, the skill gained' 
by industrial instruction will be an advantage. 

The same reason for refusino- industrial instruction] 
for the farming population would justify us in refus-j 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 73 

ing for the laboring population instruction in botany, 
zoology, and agricultural chemistry. If these subjects 
of instruction are necessary for the industrial pop- 
ulation, in order that their horizon shall be enlarged 
beyond the nearest interests of their calling, and in 
order that they shall not be utter strangers in the world 
of nature, then for the farming population industrial 
instruction is necessary, that their views may be ex- 
tended beyond agriculture, and that they may not be 
obliged to wander as total strangers through the world 
of industry and technology. 

That industrial instruction does not teach thrashing, 
mowing, and ploughing is no argument against its ben- 
efit, but against its completeness. Doubtless, agricult- 
ural labor has also great educational value, and cer- 
tainly we cannot consider that to be an ideal education 
which is separated from agriculture and practical em- 
ployment with nature ; but we cannot deal with this 
question here, and have only to remark that the educa- 
tional value of thrashing, mowing, and ploughing is 
extremely narrow, and for every one who is educated 
to labor, the learning of these arts is very simple. 
Even if agricultural labor were included in industrial 
instruction, we should oppose it on the ground of its 
being too mechanical. All labor is not educative; that 
only is so which is pursued pedagogically ; that which 
is pursued mechanically is stupefying; and mechan- 
ical employments, even when pedagogically pursued, 
are of comparatively little educational value. 



74 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE OBJECTIONS OF EDUCATORS AND SCHOOLMEN TO 
INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

I. THE AIM OF THE SCHOOL AND OF INDUSTRIAL IN- 
STRUCTION. 

The opponents of industrial instruction prefer to 
speak of incidental matters, and remain eloquently 
silent upon essential points. They ridicule the one- 
sidedness of the pedagogically uneducated friends of 
this subject ; they criticise the incompleteness and the 
material benefit ; they look at the economic results 
with the microscope, and prophesy the ruin of hand 
work and of culture ; they speak of the violation of 
personal freedom, and above all, they see no possibility 
of practical accomplishment ; they discuss all these in- 
cidental points in detail, but no one speaks even inci- 
dentally upon the essential points. N'ot a single per- 
son considers the question whether or not industrial 
instruction is necessary for the harmonious develop- 
ment of mankind. JVbt a single person shoivs that 
labor, according to its nature and infuence, may for the 
education and training of mankind be dispensable, 
superfluous, or even injurious. They all go round this 



I 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 75 

principal question like the small relative of the large 
lion round the hot soup.^ 

So long as this fundamental question in its proper 
sense remains unanswered, the assaults of opponents are 
merely entertaining skirmishing, without any kind of 
decisive force. 

All opponents of industrial instruction acknowledge 
the justice of the demand for harmonious development, 
or themselves make this demand ; but while the major- 
ity trouble themselves to prove that it is already sup- 
plied by the present school, at least one has felt the 
risk of such an assertion, and hence he declares that 
" the school is only a factor in the process of human 
development," and that " its task is abstraction." 

In conformity with the demand of the school law 
in the canton of Zuiich for harmonious development, 
the aim of the public school is to train the children of 
all classes to he mentally active, socially useful, aud 
morally religious. [In the bill by Thomas Scherz, it 
stands morally good.'\ The public school will now 
have a brand new aim, viz., training in abstraction, 
which may be supposed to mean idea training [idea 
building] . 

Let us for the moment accept this new aim as cor- 
rect, then the question arises as to how the school 
will fulfil its purpose ; how shall it instil ideas into 
the children? Our opponent does not discuss this 

' Keport of Proceedings of Zurich School Synod, 1882. 



76 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

question. If he thinks the education in ideas should 
be pursued differently from what it has been up to the 
present time, he ought to have said so, in order to jus- 
tify the definition of his aim. If he thinks, however, 
that it should be pursued as heretofore, then from this 
different definition his aim can only be by it to reject 
the demand for harmonious training in the school, and 
with it the demand for industrial instruction. Indeed, 
it is so ; both demands are opposed by this argument. 
Let us see with what right. 

First of all, we very gladly notice that industrial 
instruction is indirectly acknowledged to be a means for 
harmonious development. We must, however, point to 
the fact that hitherto no one has ever assigned to the 
school merely the aim of idea training, but has always 
stipulated that it shall develop physical skill, together 
with moral capabilities and qualities. Let us admit 
that idea training is included with mental activity, 
although this is not right, since it is only a part of it, 
and does not include judgment and argument. For 
our present school, therefore, the definition is much 
too narrow, and hence cannot be used as a reason for 
refusing the demand for harmonious development, in- 
clusive of the demand for industrial instruction. 

But even admitting that this is correct, that the aim 
of the public school be merely to form ideas, then, 
indeed, industrial instruction cannot be excluded, but 
must so much the more be demanded, as it is the most 
important means for idea building. As such, it sur- 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 77 

passes object instruction, for it presupposes the most 
exact observation of things, and adds to it new forms, 
together with new concepts. Hence, the ideas must 
necessarily become clearer and more definite than by 
mere object instruction. 

Further, the suggestion that it is only a factor in the 
development of mankind cannot free the school from 
the claim for harmonious development. Certainly, it 
is only a factor in human development, but it is the 
representative, par excellence, of pedagogy, and as 
such must within its sphere fulfil the demands of peda- 
gogy. It must educate harmoniously, as also the 
other factors of education, home and society, on their 
part must do. As we know, these latter train one- 
sidedly and inharmoniously enough. 

In Heaven's name, who should satisfy the demand 
for harmonious education, if not the school ? The home 
is still less capable of giving a harmonious training 
than it is of giving education in labor and mental activ- 
ity. Society has created the school, through which the 
educational duties of the family are to be fulfilled. 
Consequently, the task will remain to the school, and 
only to it can the task of harmonious training be as- 
signed. Certainly, previous to the fourteenth or fif- 
teenth year, the public school cannot be required to 
train ready men, for it has only children under its con- 
trol, but it can be required to train harmoniously. 
Harmonious training must not be confused with com- 
plete training. In all stages and conditions of life, 



78 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

education can be harmonious, but in its compass not 
complete and finished. Harmonious training does not 
mean finished training, but it means such training that 
all human powers and talents shall be symmetrically 
developed. Harmonious training means to bring the 
moral, mental, and physico-practical side of man to a 
symmetrical development. Harmonious training de- 
notes, not the quantity, but the quality of the training. 
Harmonious training cannot be determined by square, 
still less by long, but only by cubic measure. 

The majority of the opponents of industrial instruc- 
tion assert that the school already fulfils the demand 
for harmonious training. In any case, the crown 
belongs to the German educator, who has the boldness 
to declare that every single subject in the school should 
educate symmetrically ; since industrial instruction does 
not do this, then it does not belong to the school. Then 
reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geometry, 
geography, history, nature knowledge (^. e., natural 
history), singing, drawing, gymnastics, not all to- 
gether, each applied in its right proportion trains sym- 
metrically, but each alone trains symmetrically, so it 
stands written in black and white. Accordingly, each 
trains the moral, mental, and physico-practical side of 
our nature. It is a marvel, not only that the children, 
and indeed, that we teachers ourselves, through the en- 
joyment of such training, have not already become half- 
gods, but that many among us have remained very one- 
sided indeed. Just think of it ! every subject trains 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION, 79 

svmmetrically ; there are a dozen subjects, then there is 
a twelvefold symmetry. 

But how? If each subject trained symmetrically, 
morality would receive about one per cent, the physico- 
practical capabilities one per cent, and the mind about 
ninety-eight per cent. Then could we speak of the 
symmetrical training power of each of these subjects ? 
Certainly, but only with the aid of very flat petti- 
foggery. Sound common-sense would not speak of 
the symmetry, but of the one-sidedness of such train- 
ing. 

If in an excited discussion upon the power of train- 
ing symmetrically which belongs to each of the ordi- 
nary school subjects, one should so exaggerate, we could 
understand it ; if, however, it is to be found printed 
in a pamphlet by a man crowned with a recognized 
diploma of popular science enterprise, then it is pre- 
suming a great deal upon our three dimensional power 
of comprehension.^ 

It is self-evident that the bold opponent makes no 
attempt to show that industrial instruction does not 
train as symmetrically as at least any one of the school 
subjects, e. g., writing or singing. And "if reasons 
were as plenty as blackberries," says Falstaff, we 
should still give you none. So also the opponent ; he 

^ Meyer's Instruction in Handicraft appeared in the German Zeit- 
und Streit-Fragen. Certainly, our remarks are not opposed to 
this meritorious enterprise. 



80 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

asserts quite simply that industrial instruction, apart 
from the resulting exercise of the eye, strives to 
secure the greatest one-sided development of one 
member. 

What industrial instruction, ^. e., what certain peo- 
ple at certain places seek to accomplish by indus- 
trial instruction, has nothing to do with an earnest 
investigation as to the training and educative value 
of the same, for it can only treat of what educational 
results industrial instruction has, according to its 
nature. What should we say of a teacher, who, 
wishing to inquire into the pedagogic value of a 
school subject, would draw his conclusions from the 
unpedagogic aims and the unpedagogic pursuit of 
this subject on the part of Henry or John? As we 
have already shown, the whole argument that in- 
dustrial instruction seeks to accomplish a most one- 
sided development of the hand, is superfluous and a 
gross error. (See Chapter II.) 

Every subject, if it would find acceptance in the 
public school, must prepare for the common vocations 
of the common people. All subjects of instruction in 
the public school fulfil this demand, except industrial 
instruction. It prepares one only for the position of the 
mechanic, hence it must not be received with the pub- 
lic school. So argues the opponent further.^ What] 
the common vocations of the whole people are, has,,] 

' Meyer, Handicraft Instruction. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 81 

however, not been stated ; neither has a definition of 
any such avocation been given. Only one character- 
istic of the idea of a common avocation of the whole 
people do we learn indirectly, viz., this, that indus- 
trial labor does not belong to it. Then industry itself 
is not a common avocation of the whole people ; also 
agriculture can be no such avocation, for without in- 
dustrial labor, it is inconceivable. For the same 
reason, trade and commerce can not belong to the 
common avocations of the whole people, for they pre- 
suppose and require industrial labor. Finally, the two 
educational arts, architecture and modelling, do not 
belong to these common avocations, for they are but 
a higher spiritualized form of industrial instruction. 
Hence only painting, the arts of phonics and expression, 
and the sciences remain. But these also presuppose 
industrial labor. The painter needs linen, paper, or a 
wall to paint. The musician needs instruments upon 
which to play, and he, as well as the poet, in order to 
fix his thoughts, must have paper, pen, and ink. 
Finally, the scholar, in addition to the last-mentioned 
things, needs books and apparatus. All these indis- 
pensable aids to art and science can only be secured 
by industrial labor. But, above all, industrial labor 
is necessary for support, shelter, clothing, conve- 
nience, travelling ; in short, for the gratification of 
the many inevitable and social necessities of artists 
and scholars. Accordingly, without industrial labor 
there would be not only no arts and sciences, but also 

6 



82 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

no agriculture, no trade and commerce. However, as 
industrial labor is excluded from the common avoca- 
tions of the whole people, then, according to Herr 
Meyer, all these things are not common avocations of 
the people. 

But where are the common avocations of the people, 
if industrial labor does not belong to them, — industrial 
labor which unites all the important avocations enumer- . 
ated ? If there he one single avocation common to the 
whole people, it is surely industrial labor. 

Naturally, it does not occur to the opponent to show 
how the usual school subjects prepare for the common 
avocations of the whole people; he only declares it spe- 
cially in regard to gymnastics. Now, if we enumerate 
the avocations common to the whole people, manual 
labor, agriculture, trade, and commerce, it is not easy 
to perceive in what way gymnastics will prepare for 
them ; if we enumerate the public offices as avocations 
common to the whole people, again we can hardly 
understand how gymnastics can prepare for the ad- 
ministration of justice and public affairs. Does bend-l 
ing of the knees and stretching of the arms instil into ! 
the mind a comprehension of a citizen's rights and! 
duties? Gymnastics can certainly make a man more] 
skilful in the fulfilment of one political duty, that of; 
protecting the country, and it can strengthen the body] 
for the practice of labor ; but it certainly cannot pre- 
pare for civil employments so well as perhaps writing, 
reading, and arithmetic for trade and commerce. If, 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 83 

the opponent has in any way united an idea underly- 
ing his words at all, then there is about it a scholarly 
conceit, and an undervaluing of labor in general which 
we no longer expected to encounter. But we have 
reason to suppose that he has worked according to the 
Mephistophelian advice : — 

" But o'er-anxioTis thought you '11 find of no avail; 
For there precisely where ideas fail, 
A word comes opportunely into play. 
Most admirable weapons words are found ; 
On words a system we securely ground ; 
In words we can conveniently believe, 
Nor of a single jot can we a word bereave." 

From Anna Southwick's translation of Faust. 

Now, from our investigations, it follows that iu 
view of the aims for the people's school established 
by the opponents, industrial instruction cannot be ex- 
cluded, but for the securing of these aims it is more 
than ever to be desired. As we shall further show 
in the coming pages, it is necessary for idea building 
[theoretical training], and necessary for preparation 
for the most important avocations of human life. 

II. CAN GYMNASTICS SECURE HARMONIOUS DEVELOP- 
MENT? 

The opponents of industrial instruction say that 
gymnastics will secure harmonious development, only 
they must be given in their full extent. They demand, 



84 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

therefore, daily instruction and exercise. Hereby, 
they start upon the false presumption that industrial 
instruction deals only with general physical develop- 
ment. If this were the case, then gymnastics could 
certainly in great part, though not entirely, replace 
labor. Indeed, we can hardly understand how gym- 
nastics will or can exactly exercise and strengthen 
all the motor nerves which are required for the per- 
formance of definite labor. If industrial instruction 
had merely the education of the hand for its aim, 
then instruction in gymnastics could not replace it. 
Gymnastics can only increase capability for labor, but 
can directly create neither capability nor skill in 
labor. If we compare the human body and its organs 
with a manufactory and the machinery which it con- 
tains, then we can say gymnastic instruction is neces- 
sary in order to strengthen the motor ; but industrial 
instruction is necessary in order to erect and to make 
capable of action the machine which must be moved 
by this motor. Of what use is a strong motor without 
a competent machine, capable of action? At best, it 
only causes destruction and ruin to itself. Gymnas- 
tic instruction trains the organs of the body in general, 
essentially for the sake of the organs themselves ; 
industrial instruction trains for the aims of life. 
Gymnastic instruction receives its highest signifi- 
cance only as a suggestion towards the aims of life, 
and as means for their fulfilment. It is not pursued 
in the school for the purpose of training contortionists 



INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 85 

and athletes, but men with sound bodies, who are 
capable of fulfilling their duties towards society. For 
the aims of life, gymnastic instruction is dispensable ; 
industrial instruction, on the contrary, is for this pur- 
pose indispensable ; it must be given by whom it may. 
Gymnastic instruction, including gymnastics and not 
merely school exercises, serves for harmonious devel- 
opment ; industrial instruction serves for this also, 
but in a broader sense, in that it also promotes the 
aims of life. Gymnastics train no organ for the pur- 
poses of life, but industrial instruction trains the or- 
gans therefor, and besides, strengthens them as well 
as gymnastics. Hence, gytmiastics can nevei' replace 
industrial instruction, hut a well-arranged course of 
industrial instruction might rather make gymnastic 
instruction superjiuous. 

Industrial instruction, the same as any harmonious 
development, is not intended to give to the present one- 
sided mental development a counterbalance in bodily 
exertion. Oh, no ! In the first place, that would not 
give harmonious development; and in the second, it 
would be a very narrow comprehension of industrial 
instruction and of harmonious development. Indus- 
trial instruction has much more to do ivith creating an 
interest, aim, and foundation for theoretical, abstract 
instruction, and with securing knowledge and under- 
standing, which no other instruction, which, indeed, no 
instruction but labor, can secure; just as harmonious 
education deals not only with the establishment of equi- 



86 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

librium between bodily and mental training, but quite 
as much with the establishment of equilibrium within 
the sphere of mental training, and above all, for the 
establishment of equilibrium between moral and mental 
training. 

In conclusion, we may remark that no opponent of 
industrial instruction attempts to show that gymnastic 
instruction can supply the demand for harmonious 
development. Some merely assert that it does, and 
others demand that increased instruction in gymnastics 
shall secure harmonious development. 

III. THE SCHOOL ALREADY PURSUES HAND LABOR. 

It has already a number of subjects, which "from 
their mechanical side, may be regarded as hand labor, 
i. e., writing, drawing, arithmetic, and geometry." 

These subjects, together with gymnastics, make in- 
dustrial instruction in particular dispensable, say the 
opponents. Oh ! oh ! Why, then, do they assert 
that the school already pursues hand labor, if, as a 
subject of instruction, it is of no worth? And if it is 
already there, why should they resist the introduction 
of hand labor into instruction? In this case, the ques- 
tion should only be for more or less. Yet, no ; the 
opponent is pleased to jest ; or is he in earnest when 
he asserts that a number of school subjects, among 
them arithmetic and geometry, from their mechanical 
side are hand labor? Certainly he is in earnest, and 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 87 

IS, indeed, entirely right. All sciences, as philology, 
history, geography, botany, zoology, mineralogy, and 
chemistry, moreover hiw, medicine, astronomy, theol- 
ogy, and philosophy, are, from their mechanical sides, 
hand labor. This doctrine from its sublimity is worthy 
to stand beside that of the English professor, Henry 
Steffens, who says, in effect, "For the laboring man, 
hand labor is enjoyment ; but for the gentleman, enjoy- 
ment is labor." For the completion of this system' of 
doctrine, it only remains to be shown that the tread- 
mill punishment in the English prisons, from its anti- 
mechanical side, is mental activity. This last assertion 
Avould prove as much against the mental activity of 
criminals as the foregoing objection proves against 
industrial instruction. 

"Writing, drawing, arithmetic, geometry, and gym- 
nastics, says one, make special industrial instruction 
superfluous. Why do these subjects make hand labor 
superfluous? Because, from their mechanical side, 
they are hand labor. In the future, the tilling of the 
field, the construction of railroads and buildings, the 
making of clothes, dyes, soaps, in short, every kind 
of hand labor will be unnecessary, because all the 
sciences, from their mechanical side, are hand labor. 
Happy future ! 

The friends of industrial instruction have quite as 
much authority for stating that hand labor makes all 
theoretical instruction unnecessary, because every kind 
of labor, from its anti-mechanical side, is mental 



88 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTIOjST. 

activity. But what would be gained by such a hair- 
splitting controversy ? 

This play of words by the opponents proves nothing 
against, but something for, the cause of industrial 
instruction, as it shows how the opponents catch at 
reasons and cling to every trifle. It is a declaration 
of bankruptcy. 

IV. DISCIPLINARY AND EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DRAW- 
ING, INDUSTRIAL, AND SCIENCE INSTRUCTION. 

Starting from the false assumption that industrial 
instruction aims merely at the development of the 
hand, we meet the assertion that the hand is better 
exercised by instruction in drawing ; that drawing is 
quite as educative and attractive an object for employ- 
ment. It extends to professional labor, and trains the 
taste and the eye. 

For the moment, let us admit that industrial instruc- 
tion merely aims at the development of the hand ; then 
drawing can replace it as little as gymnastics. The op- 
ponents will not and can not prove that instruction in 
drawing can strengthen all the motor nerves and mus- 
cles which are necessary for different kinds of active 
labor. In working, we must make movements accord- 
ing to all three dimensions ; in drawing, only accord- 
ing to two: in working, we must apply muscular 
strength to a greater or less degree ; in drawing, but 
very little : in working, we must hft, press, draw, 
push, strike, turn, wind, bend, stretch, give resistance 



I 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 89 

to pressure, to pushing, striking, drawing ; in draw- 
ing, tlie greater number of these active movements can 
not be at all applied, the rest only in a one-sided 
fashion. Now, since the most important organ for the 
performance of all these elementary activities is the 
hand, v/e can readily perceive that in working, the hand 
can be much more generally exercised than in drawing. 
The activity employed in drawing is not in any way 
equal to that employed in working; otherwise, every 
good designer must be also a good sculptor and work- 
man, which is not by any means the case. One may 
be able to delineate all objects of nature and art with- 
out being able to construct a single object ; while, on 
the other hand, construction may he carried far without 
ability to draw. But while a man who is skilful in 
imitating and creating can Avith very little instruction 
draw the things he has made, the person who is skil- 
ful only in drawing must learn a great deal before he 
can give his drawings material form. From construc- 
tion to drawing is a short step ; from drawing to con- 
struction is a long iv ay . Very few great painters were 
also skilful sculptors, but the larger number of great 
sculptors were also skilful designers. 

At present, much is being said about the improve- 
ment and protection of artistic hand labor ; but while 
the learned advocates of this improvement look to 
instruction in drawing as a rational means of protec- 
tion, they pass by the industrial instruction as of very 
limited value, or oppose it entirely. From what has 



90 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

already been said, we can see how arbitrary sucli a 
course is. In the first place, for the exercise and 
prosperity of artistic hand labor, a high grade of hand 
skill is necessary, which, as we have already shown, 
can be better developed by industrial instruction than 
by drawing. By the following considerations, the 
mistake which lies in the encoura"ement of artistic 
hand labor and the discouragement of industrial in- 
struction can be placed in a still clearer light. 

One can draw everything, so to speak, even the 
most impossible pictures of the fancy ; but one cannot 
construct everything that is drawn, and many objects 
that are drawn can only be constructed in definite 
sizes and from particular material. Every material 
has its technique and laws of art, which can only be 
learned by working with the material itself. The 
knowledge of the material, of its technique and aesthetic 
laws, is more important for the artificer than the pos- 
session of skill in drawing. Of what benefit is it that 
one can devise the most tasteful drawing, if one lacks 
the practical skill to put it into material form ; or from 
ignorance of the material in the drawing, one goes 
beyond the limits of the technique of this material, and 
hence is totally unable to work out the drawing ? Some- 
times it even happens that the design cannot be exe-^ 
cuted in any material. Finally, it is possible that tl 
design may be executed, but the object constructed il 
the chosen material makes no impression, or is dis| 
tinctly ugly. Here the errors in taste do not arisi 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 91 

from ignorance of beautiful forms so much as from 
ignorance of the technique and artistic laws of the 
material in which it is embodied. Lack of taste has 
less foundation in the inability of the sculptor and work- 
man to draw, than in the inability of the designer to 
construct and in his ignorance of the technique and 
aesthetics of the material. It is much more necessary 
that -the designer learn to construct than that the con- 
structor learn to draw. This last is, of course, useful 
and advantageous. 

Certainly, drawing may be extended to professional 
work, but it is not itself professional work ; and that 
drawing which extends to professional labor, and yet 
does not admit of transposition into professional labor, 
is half complete . Would not drawing extend to pro- 
fessional labor, that is, drawing from ground eleva- 
tion and profile, because more attractive, if it could 
be worked out? And what pedagogic reason forbids 
the working out of what is drawn ? That drawing is 
an educative and attractive kind of employment, no one 
doubts ; but the execution, the work, is still more edu- 
cative and attractive. The execution corrects the 
drawing, and makes one rightly conscious of the object 
delineated. The making, the construction of an object, 
stands in its educative, attractive, and satisfying value 
much higher than the imitating", or previous delinea- 
tion of the same on paper. Whoever has pursued 
hand labor, knows very well what pleasure and 
satisfaction a successful piece of work furnishes ; 



92 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION". 



he knows how, at the sight of it, the sense of his 
own value and capacity is elevated. The pleasure 
in a piece of work is much greater, deeper, and more 
lasting than in a drawing. Any one who has had the 
two experiences will confirm this. Then, not a single 
course of industrial instruction has been held for the 
teachers, in which this pleasure and satisfaction in the 
products were not conspicuously apparent. This pre- 
viously unknown satisfaction has already transformed 
many an inditFerent man into a warm friend of indus- 
trial instruction. But not onl}^ experience proves that 
the construction of things produces greater satisfac- 
tion than drawing, psychology also proves it. Ac- 
cording to the law of the effects of contrast this must 
be so, for the construction of an object costs more 
effort than the drawing of it ; the construction is more 
difficult than the drawing. The pleasure is in propor- 
tion to the effort expended in reaching an aim.^ 

In an educational journal^ it was recentl}'' very 
beautifully shown that science cannot be satisfactory, 
because it is continually incomplete, but that art can 
satisfy, because its creations are always complete, dis- 
tinct, whole. This assertion was made for the use and 
advantage of drawing in the public school, but it is 
much more applicable to industrial instruction, because 
each piece of work is something complete, and in the 



' Dr. Piderit, Theory of Fortune. Leipzig and Heidelberg, 1867. 
2 Teachers' Journal, Switzerland. 



INDUSTEIAL INSTEUCTION. 93 

liio;liest deOTee satisfies its creator. But while a school 
drawing can seldom find a practical application, the 
labor product of the pupil can always do so ; it can 
satisfy a practical need, and hence the satisfaction of 
the producer is greater. He knows and can prove 
that he has created something useful. 

In the suggestion that science cannot satisfy, lies 
the strongest condemnation of our present system of 
study and science schools. If science itself, in its 
highest perfection, can not satisfy a man who sees the 
connection between science and life, and understands 
the signification of the same for material culture, how 
can the beginnings of science satisfy the child whose 
limited powers can grasp, very little of this connection 
and significance? 

The self-activity of the child is rightly represented 
as the most important educative momentum of instruc- 
tion in drawing. Instruction in drawins; which does 
not rise above spiritless copying is of no worth ; that 
instruction by which the self-activity of the child is 
exercised is the best. Well, as little as any one has 
presumed to doubt the value of the self-activity of the 
pupil in drawing, just as little can one question the 
eminent importance of production in industrial instruc- 
tion. If producing in drawing is educative, it must 
be as much so in hand labor. Indeed, hand labor 
must be more educative than drawing, because in it 
the self-activity is greater. In drawing, one must 
constantly deal with the mere form ; in labor, one has 



94 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

to do with the form together with the material. In 
drawing, only two dimensions are considered ; in la- 
bor, the three dimensions must be equally observed. 
Hence, the man who constructs an object receives 
indisputably livelier, clearer concepts of it than the 
one who merely draws, for he must much more accu- 
rately comprehend the form as well as the nature of 
the material. Apart from works of art, however, the 
material of every object is quite as important as the 
form, and often much more so. 

Through the following considerations, the great edu- 
cative power of hand labor as contrasted with drawing 
may be much more clearly perceived. In working, I 
must touch the material, analyze it, perhaps smell 
and taste it ; in drawing, not : in working, I must learn 
the properties of the material ; in drawing, not : in 
working, I must choose the tools, and also the manner 
of work, according to the material ; in drawing, not : in 
working, I must, as a rule, exert myself physically ; in 
drawing, not : in working, I must give great attention to 
the material ; in drawing, very little : in short, in work- 
ing, I must set many more senses and powers m 
activity than in drawing. Hence, the construction of 
objects implies much more knowledge and understand- 
ing, enriches the concepts in a much higher degree, 
and awakens and exercises many more powers and 
talents, than drawing. 

Instruction in drawing trains the taste and the eye, 
says one. We admit that instruction in drawing, peda- 



I 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 95 

gogically pursued, secures the training of the taste and 
of the eye ; but industrial instruction, pursued according 
to pedagogical principles, must secure this training 
in a much higher degree. In regard to the training 
of the eye, there is no doubt that by the construction 
of objects the eye must in every way be much more 
exercised than by drawing. The proofs of this lie in 
Avhat has already been said. That industrial instruc- 
tion must be calculated to train the eye and taste better 
than drawing can furthermore be shown in the fact 
that the objects, according to the material used, show 
different natural colors and lustre, while drawing is 
silent upon these important qualities of objects. Draw- 
ing trains really only the taste for form. The con- 
struction of objects trains also the taste for color, and 
for the combination of color, form, and material. For 
artistic hand work, and for the artistic forms of life, 
taste in combination is most important. Taste can at 
all events be very much better trained with objects 
themselves than with drawings of objects. For this 
reason, we visit places of art and beauty, and shall 
visit them even when graphic art shall be much more 
highly developed than at present. 

Finally, and from an educational point this is most 
important, it cannot be denied that constructive embodi= 
ment of form in some material appeals to the nature of 
man, and especially of the child, much more than con- 
structions on paper. Before men could sketch they 
could construct, and before children touch the draioing- 



96 ESrUUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

pencil tliey build and construct objects according to 
realitt/. 

If we proceed according to naiure, hand labor and 
7nodelling must be introduced into the school, and both 
should precede drawing. If one really intends to train 
the taste, eye, and hand, in the school, then hand labor 
is needed; if one wishes to bring the principle of self- 
activity in a most comprehensive manner into the school, 
so that it may be of ivorth, it can only be done by hand] 
labor. If professional drawing in the school is to be 
attractive, then it must be folloioed by execution; if ^ 
the child is to be satisfied by instruction, the 7nost effec- 
tive means for this purpose, hand labor, must not be] 
excluded. 

Far be it from us to underrate the educative value 
of drawing; but this educative value, and much more, 
its economic value, has been of late considerably 
over-estimated. 

It is believed that if not the whole, at least one 
half the social problem may be solved by drawing.; 
With childlike thoughtlessness the fact is entirely over- 
looked that the social problem is not educational, but a] 
question of economic transformation. What will it] 
profit the laborer, who, by an improved machine, orj 
because of a business crisis, is thrown on the sidewalk,] 
that he can draw? Or, hov7 is drawing to help thej 
mechanic who is oppressed by the competition of large] 
business industries? We hear it cried out, that, byj 
devoting himself to an artistic trade, he will obtain 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 97 

footing ! But have the defenders not learned that 
artistic handicraft is also carried on with all the power- 
ful advantages of a large industry? Or have they 
never considered the question of who is to buy all the 
products of artistic educated mechanics? At present 
we have a sufficiency of artificers, but not enough pur- 
chasers of their products. There is as great a lack of 
employment among artificers as among the workmen in 
other branches of industry. What we need is people 
able to buy, and only by a deep-reaching social reform 
will they become able. Only when the mass of the 
people can take part in the social enjoyment of life, 
may we expect the art trade to extend and flourish ; 
till then, not. 

V. OBJECTIVE METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN FOREST 
AND FIELD. 

While one set of opponents attach great value to the 
claims and support of observation, others cast it aside, 
and demand that objective instruction shall be pursued 
in forest and field, but not in the workshop.^ Doubt- 
less, objective instruction shall and must be pursued in 
forest and field, but it is quite impossible that all ob- 
jective instruction should be carried on there. Thou- 
sands of things connected with life cannot be learned 
in forest and field, since not even a national industrial 

' Meyer, Instruction in Handicraft ; and Report of tlie Transac- 
tions of tlie Zurich School Synod, 1882. 
7 



98 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

exhibition furnishes them. Also, what is still more 
important, we cannot see there how these thousands of 
things can be produced by labor. Why do the ad- 
vanced and elementary schools make pilgrimages to 
such exhibitions? Entirely on the ground of objec- 
tive instruction. And why are machines in action, 
and work-people at such exhibitions of labor prod- 
ucts, constantly beset with spectators? Because an 
infinitely greater interest and much more information 
are secured by being present at the construction of a 
thing, than by merely looking at the thing completed. 
But in forest and field we can not see grinding, 
kneading, baking ; can not see carding, spinning, 
winding, twisting, spooling, and weaving ; can not see 
coloring, spooling, dressing, pasting, stitching, bind- 
ing, and ruling ; can not see printing, perforating, 
embroidering, sewing, knitting ; can not see filing, 
"welding, forging ; can not see sawing, planing, glu- 
ing, joining, turning. In forest and field we can not 
see the creating of material things, we can only see 
what has been created. The creating, however, is 
more interesting than the being. What a one-sided 
comprehension of objective instruction do we meet 
here ! In the face of the fact that all the prominent 
educators recommended objective instruction in the 
workshop, such a comprehension on the part of edu- 
cators is hardly conceivable Comenius and Locke 
recommended it at a time when the colossal industries 
of our day were not yet even born. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 99 

VI. OBJECTIVE AND HAND-LABOR INSTRUCTION. 

In the contest over industrial instruction, it has been 
asserted by one of the opponents that the foundation of 
all educational work depends upon observation.^ We 
can not here enter into a psychological discussion, and 
show that this is wrong ; we mast be satisfied with 
saying that education rests upon entirely different 
foundations, while we suppose that the opponent in- 
tended to say that the foundation of all means of edu- 
cation and understanding rests upon observation. 
Since the time of Pestalozzi, who first formulated it, 
this statement has been generally received as true. It 
is, indeed, true, though it does not contain the whole, 
but only a part of the truth. We do not learn to 
know an object merely by looking at it : not even 
when we feel, smell, taste, and hear it, do we learn to 
know it rightly. If we wish to learn it thoroughly, 
we must break, bruise, cut it ; we must press on it, 
press it together, stretch it, heat it, cool it ; we must 
expose it to the cold, the heat, the sun, the water, the 
air ; in short, we must form it, or deform it, or try 
both ; we must work with it. The most important 
qualities of objects become known to us, not by 
observation, but by actual work with them. If our 
ancestors had been satisfied with mere observation, 
we should still be in the dark about the qualities 

^ Report of the Transactions of the Zurich School Synod, 1882. 

L.ofC. 



100 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 



and nature of woods, minerals, soils, and metals, as 
well as the nature of plants, animals, and even our- 
selves. Without working with woods, minerals, soils, 
and metals, what should we know of these things? 
Nothing that would in any way be important for our 
lives. We could not say whether or not they are hard 
or soft, cleavable, fusible, ductile, elastic, brittle, sol- 
uble, plastic, etc. And if we had not investigated 
them, how would our knowledge of animals and plants 
stand? So long as people shrunk from the dissection 
of bodies, did the knowledge of medicine rest upon 
anything more than implicit faith? Whatever may be 
thought of vivisection, we must acknowledge that we 
owe to it much of our important knowledge concern- 
ing the processes of life and disease. 

The results of observation are misleading. Satisfac- 
tion w^ith these results gave rise to peculiar systems of 
opinions and beliefs, but when we began to construct, 
to act, the sciences were developed. 

Our modern exact sciences do not rest alone upon 
observation, but chiefly upon experiment, upon work- 
ing with objects and living things. Hence, that obser- 
vation which implies not only the use of sight, but of 
all the sense perceptions, is by no means the only 
source of knowledge. It is only one among others ; 
quite as important a one is labor, and a third is the 
sensation of movement. 

It is indisputable that if we did not possess the 
power of voluntary movement and change of place, 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 101 

with the accompanying sensations of movement, we 
should never attain the most important concept of 
S}>ace. He who has measured the distances of the 
earth only in the steam-cars, has a. much vaguer im- 
pression of them than he who has measured them on 
foot. Concepts of toil, fatigue, effort, can never be 
acquired without labor and sensations of movement. 
Hence, a man who has never done any kind of agri- 
cultural or industrial labor cannot acquire these con- 
cepts, because the fundamental concepts are lacking. 
The fundamental concepts of the activities of arith- 
metic, writing, and drawing, which one has perhaps 
acquired, can serve as little for the formation of the 
concept of industrial and agricultural hand labor, as 
the concepts of all the birds can help us to construct the 
concept of a fish or quadruped, if we neither in nature 
nor in art had seen oae. The concepts of the mental 
activities have little more in common with those of the 
bodily activities, than the concepts of birds with those 
of fishes or quadrupeds. 

But the man who has no conception of hand labor 
can have no self-acquired and correct concepts of the 
hand-laboring class of people [industrial population], 
and of the objects constructed by them. In conse- 
quence of these incomplete concepts, he despises labor 
and laboring people, and becomes prodigal and waste- 
ful of labor products, just as all the ruling classes of 
ancient states, in consequence of the disuse of hand 
labor, notwithstanding moral precepts and philosophy, 



102 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

have, and according to psychological laws must have, 
become. The final result of this disuse of hand la- 
bor, with its consequences of prodigality, gluttony, and 
drunkenness, was the complete bankruptcy of society. 
In proportion as the disuse of hand labor increased, 
contempt of labor and laborers, prodigality, and drunk- 
enness increased. It could not be otherwise. Men 
who are strangers in the whole world of concepts 
growing out of hand labor, and who are incapable 
of thinking, judging, arguing, and feeling, are dan- 
gerous to the well-being of a state, especially of 
one founded upon the labor and equal rights of all 
citizens. 

Now, if the common school does not make them 
acquainted with it, a number of citizens are at present 
growing up ignorant of hand labor. Generally, these 
are the citizens who w^ill be educated and chosen for 
the guidance of the state. In view of this fact, can 
we wonder that labor is so little esteemed ? Certainly 
not. 

According to vjhat has been said, industrial instruc- 
tion, from an educational as well as from a social, 
political stand-point, is a necessity. From an educa- 
tional stand-point it is necessary, because hand labor 
secures knowledge and understanding , which cannot be 
secured by mere observation, but lohich for mental 
training and for life is, however, of the highest im- 
portance. From a social, political, and pedagogic 
stand-point, it is indispensable, because hand labor 



INDUSTRIAL' INSTRUCTION. 103 

serves in the forming of concepts which, for the peace- 
able intercourse of humanity, for moral conduct, and 
for the existence of the state, are of the greatest sig- 
nificance. 

VII. INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION CAN NOT REMEDY THE 
DISADVANTAGES OF THE PRESENT SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

So the opponents declare, but they argue concern- 
ing the physical injuries resulting from some kinds of 
hand work, and shoot very wide of the mark. Indus- 
trial instruction is not in any way intended to be 
instruction in handicraft, as it is very unfitly called, 
for it does not educate finished mechanics ; that is 
done in institutions for special instruction for which 
the opponents of industrial instruction also speak. 
Industrial instruction, pursued according to pedagogic 
principles, which is not a mere transplanting of a 
branch of industry into the school, will decidedly neu- 
tralize the disadvantages of long sitting and other 
physical injuries of school life : first, because labor 
demands the greatest variety of employment for the 
senses and muscles, and secondly, because by labor, 
partly quite other senses and muscles, partly the same 
senses and muscles although in other directions, are 
brought into practice. However, recreation, except 
by sleep, does not consist in idleness, but in change 
of employment and in change of movement of the 
bodily and mental forces. Locke has already pointed 
out this important truth, and Rousseau, speaking in 



104 INDUSTRIAL HfSTRUCTION. 

behalf of hand labor, says, "The great secret of edu- 
cation is to manage so that bodily exercises shall re- 
fresh the mind, and vice versa." Refreshment, how- 
ever, does not consist alone in the change from bodily 
to mental employments, but also in the change within 
the sphere of bodily and mental activities. Any per- 
son accustomed to self-observation must certainly have 
experienced this. One is weary of historical study, 
but still quite fresh for natural science. One is worn 
out with thinking and incapable of producing thought, 
yet quite equal to the reception of new thoughts. One 
is satiated with poetry, yet grasps after prose reading. 
So it is with bodily activity. During the da}^ we 
have become fatigued with one-sided, heavy bodily 
labor ; in the evening, however, we have forced our- 
selves to go to the gymnastic society, and after an 
hours exercise returned fresh and newly strengthened ; 
provided neither the one nor the other be carried to 
excess, the change from bodily to mental activity 
naturally affords the greatest recreation. This ex- 
plains the fact that children whose activity is divided 
between study and labor learn much quicker and easier 
than those who only study, and that they never become 
weary of school. On account of this school weariness, 
an interruption of from one to more years has been 
proposed, but why rack the brains for the cure of an 
evil whose cause can be so easily remedied? Let in- 
dustrial instruction be introduced, and the children will 
learn more rapidly and easily, and will not become 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 105 

weary. An interruption in the attendance at school 
is disadvantageous to the children, and must cause 
great difficulties for the parents. It will not and can 
not be. denied that the physical injuries of our present 
school of theoretical study, viz., mental over-exertion 
and weariness, precocity and satiety, may be avoided 
by industrial instruction. This indisputable advantage 
alone should be sufficient to make the introduction of 
this instruction desirable, for mental over-exertion, 
precocity, and satiety render the formation of char- 
acter quite impossible. Industrial instruction, ex- 
tended through all grades of the school, even to profes- 
sional and scientific subjects, would be the best means 
of avoiding overburdening. Overburdening consists 
partly in too much abstract, theoretical instruction in 
general, but also partly in one-sided, disconnected, 
uninteresting excess of this instruction. By the in- 
troduction and union of industrial with theoretical 
instruction, a central point and interest for many 
otherwise separate subjects might be created, and the 
one-sidedness of all the instruction prevented. In 
consequence of the change between bodily and mental 
activity, and the resulting mental freshness, and because 
of the concentration of instruction with the increased 
interest, the children and youth would more readily 
master the matter of theoretical instruction; the hours 
for study coidd be shortened, and still the aim of men- 
tal study attained. 



106 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 



VIII. INCREASE OF HOURS FOR INSTRUCTION. 

We know veiy well that the opponents of industrial 
instruction assert the very opposite of what we have 
just proved, and say that without additional time, this 
new subject can not be introduced. We dispute this, 
and beg leave to present some reasons for our opinion 
that industrial instruction, which is quite as much a 
new method of teaching as a new subject of instruction, 
secures to the children a much quicker, easier, and 
more thorough knowledge than theoretical instruction, 
and, what is more important, it teaches the pupils to 
seek and find the truth. 

The principal point in all instruction is that the pupil 
shall have an interest in it. The Herbartian pedagogy 
seeks to awaken this interest by the establishment of 
an aim in teaching, and at the same time to create 
thereby an interest, a will, in the pupil. The pupil 
must know why he is active ; he must have the benefit 
of his activity before his eyes. The demand of Come- 
nius, that " nothing of which the use is not perceptible 
shall be taught," is hereby to an extent met. In itself, 
the whole argument is quite correct. In the abstract 
instruction of the school for study, however, the aim 
of teaching is almost entirely theoretical, the practical 
benefit of which the pupil does not perceive, because 
it lies too far ofi:' in the outside life of which the child 
as yet understands nothing. If the use of an aim can 
not be comprehended, of what benefit is its establish- 



INDUSTEIAL INSTEUCTION. 107 

ment? Practical benefit is that which moves the child, 
and is that after which it inquires. For the training 
of unselfish men, to ignore the child's stand-point of 
utility indicates a misconception of child nature. An 
unselfish man can not be trained by ignoring or attack- 
ing the natural, positively authorized egotism of chil- 
dren ; but only by turning this selfishness into the right 
channel, and bringing it up to that humanity which 
desires no more for itself than it grants to others, and 
asks for others what it wishes for itself. Like the will, 
egotism must not be broken, but guided. Moreover, 
the question of children, " Of what use is that?" arises 
just as much from an innate desire for knowledge as 
from egotism. It is the question regarding purpose. To 
put them oif, or not to answer them, is to deaden the 
instinctive desire for knowledge, and to make inactive 
dreamers of children. The theoretical aims of teachinsf 
in the school are not generally final aims. Final aims 
can often be only practical activities and their prod- 
ucts. If we establish labor and its products as aims 
for teaching, we have, for many cases, marked a pur- 
pose which the pupil recognizes, and by which indirect 
theoretical aims receive a support. In this way, the 
greatest possible interest and desire on the part of the 
pupil will be created. The benefit is plain to be seen, 
and if it is united with theoretical information, the 
pupil knows why and to what purpose he must learn 
these thino;s. No artificial exterior motive is neces- 
sary, it lies in the thing itself. 



108 INDUSTEIAL INSTKUCTION. 

"True education of mankind, education by devel- 
opment, must begin witii the fact ; tlie act, with the 
doing, must germinate in it, must grow thence and be 
founded upon it," says Froebel. 

Because, by industrial instruction, clear and recog- 
nizable aims of teaching and learning, with manifest 
advantages, are established, and the interest of the 
student greatly aroused thereby, and a strong desire is 
aroused and guided to definite ends ; because, further- 
more, industrial instruction, as we have already shown, 
brings into play a greater number of mental and 
bodily powers ; therefore, it must secure a quicker, 
easier, and more thorough knowledge. Furthermore, 
since by no other instruction the self-activity of the 
pupil can be greater than by this, then in the highest 
degree and in the very best manner it must be cal- 
culated to promote self-reflection, invention, combina- 
tion, inference, and judgment. 

"The mind, which by the otherwise evil kind of 
teaching is constantly trained to act according to for- 
eign precepts, revives by industrial instruction, catches 
ideas, and invents means to perfect them," says Salz- 
mann ; and Rousseau was right when he said, "An 
hour's work will teach your pupil more things than he 
can remember from a whole day's explanation." 

In order to secure time for industrial instruction, it 
is not necessary to increase the hours of instruction, 
as the time devoted to this subject may be gained by 
the shortening of the time for theoretical instruction. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 109 

Should this be impossible, a supposition which is very 
contradictory, then it would not be necessary to increase 
the time, but to exclude from the school such subjects 
as have the least educational worth. We may mention 
as such doctrinal teaching and history. In a state which 
does not wish to violate the palladium of freedom of 
belief and conscience, systems of belief do not belong 
in the schools, and, in the grades of the public school, 
history can be nothing but political or social dogma. 

Of history, understood as the inner foundation of 
social events, the child can grasp almost nothing, 
because self-acquired concepts necessary to the com- 
prehension of the subject are lacking. Instruction in 
history must be transferred to higher grades, where 
the mind is more mature. Only in this way can the 
problem of method of instruction in history be satisfac- 
torily solved. 

Of the educational value of instruction in doctrine 
and dogma, it is unnecessary to give any information. 
On every page of history the answer is written in let- 
ters of blood, for him who understands to read. 

If school subjects are chosen according to the order 
of their value in social life and in human culture, no 
question as to whether industrial instruction shall find 
a place will be raised ; the question will rather be 
whether other subjects can find a place on the school 
programme. 

After what has been said, we can confidently -leave 
the reader to judge of the value of the assertion, that 



110 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

by the introduction of industrial instruction the aim 
of the school for study will not be reached. If this 
assertion were well grounded, it would prove nothing 
against industrial instruction, as it would not by any 
means be proved that the aims of the present school 
for study are the only right and infalHble ones. 

By industrial instruction, says one, the number of 
subjects will be increased, but the thoroughness and 
educative influence upon the pupil will be diminished. 
The inference from this is, that the less instruction is 
extended to different subjects, the more effectively it 
works. According to this, a school with one subject 
must secure to the pupil the greatest thoroughness and 
the greatest educative influence. From many subjects, 
then, must this one be chosen. By what standard shall 
this choice be determined? By the educational and^ 
social value of the subject. Agreed ! Now, according! 
to our expose, Avhat must this subject be? Indus- 
trial instruction will certainly increase the number of 
subjects, but only outwardly; in reality, it will not 
increase the variety, it will create living relations with 
this variety, while the thoroughness and educative in- 
fluence upon the pupil will not be diminished, but must] 
be increased. 

IX. HAND LABOR SHOULD BE VACATION EMPLOrMENTj| 
AND IN CHILDHOOD MERELY PLAY. 

This objection is brought against industrial instruc-- 
tion. Remarkable, indeed ! very remarkable ! Hanc 



rNDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. Ill 

labor, which, as a subject of instruction, is utterly 
worthless, and also as such affects the health injuriously, 
is good enough for play and vacation employment. A 
glance into the peculiarities of child nature has pro- 
vided the opponents with this knowledge, They have 
doubtless remarked that in vacation and during; their 
playtime, children gladly work at something, and that 
they are happy in building and constructing. Hence, 
they shall do so in vacation and in play, but not in 
school. What a conclusion ! We do not make it, but 
it must be made by the opponents, who recommend 
hand labor as vacation emplojaiient and play. 

Why hand labor shall be only vacation employment 
and play, we do not learn. Indeed, it would be very 
hard to say. Has perhaps hand labor more remote 
reference to the life of the child, than arithmetic and 
writing, geography and history? Or are the relations 
of hand labor to life less intelligible to the child than 
those between theoretical knowledge and life ? 

Indeed, in order to hear the answer from every mouth, 
it is only necessary to put the question. The relations 
of hand labor to life are much nearer than those of 
theoretical instruction, and are incomparably easier 
to comprehend. Daily food and drink, shelter and 
clothing, are necessary ; and in order to procure them, 
labor is necessary, for all school knowledge cannot con- 
jure them. 

That for hand labor children have a very great, and 
for theoretical instruction a very limited interest is 



112 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

taught by all psycho-physiological laws, and confirmed 
by experience. Therefore, must hand labor be play, 
and mental labor bloody earnest, as it is made by the 
school, and as teachers specially wish it to be made? 

Our conviction is, that the future will reverse the 
present relation between practical and theoretical in- 
struction for childhood. Then the principal thing will 
be labor [^construction"] ; and in proportion as labor 
awakens in the child an interest and a sense of need, 
will theoretical instruction be added to it. 

We cannot deny that at present children have to 
learn much for which they have neither a sense of need 
nor interest. By a suggestion regarding social neces- 
sity, this compulsion may be justified, but it can never 
be supported by pedagogic reasons. It is a violation of 
the course of development of child nature, and stands 
in contradiction to a developing education. Hence, in 
order to create a sense of need and an interest in the 
child, the task of pedagogy must be to do away with 
this compulsion. For many subjects, this can be done 
by labor ; and nearly all subjects, at least in reference 
to labor, can be made voluntary. If any subject is 
fitted to become the central point of instruction, surely 
it is labor and its products. 

We know well that not all theoretical instruction can 
be united to hand labor, but much can be connected 
with it, and nearly all branches can find in it a natural 
focal point. All the theoretical instruction which can 
be, ought to be united to labor ; that which is not con- 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 113 

nected, should either be placed in relation to it, or 
should lead up to it. For the lower school grades, it 
is essential that the theory grow out of the practice ; 
for the higher grades, theory may precede practice, 
but must pass over into it. Neither in life nor in in- 
struction should practice and theory be separated. 

By observing these principles in instruction, we 
place ourselves in harmony with the process of human 
development. So far as we can follow this process of 
development do we always see that theory has grown 
out of practice, and science out of life, and that in life 
and practice both have found again their realization 
and their test. Now, if it be true that the child in a 
lessened manner passes through all the stages of devel- 
opment of mankind, then in the formation of childish 
knowledge the process to be pursued must be similar 
to that which has served in the formation of treasures 
of knowledge possessed by mankind. By means of 
effort, labor, and the predominating use of its physical 
powers, the child must be guided to knowledge and 
understanding. He must be guided in the same way 
in which mankind for thousands of years has uncon- 
sciously gone, and in which, in order to reach the truth, 
the exact sciences have, since Bacon of Yerulam, con- 
sciously proceeded, viz., the way of induction. If 
truths are offered the child without trouble on his part, 
i. e., if theory is always allowed to precede, and never 
to pass over into practice, then, first, the truths do 
not cling to the child ; second, they are of no value to 



114 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

him ; third, the child never learns to value the labor 
of preceding generations for the establishment of 
knowledge and understanding, and, what is worst of 
all, he becomes satiated. 

Notwithstanding all political and religious differences 
of individual aims, all later pedagogy proceeding from 
the empiricism of Bacon has more or less clearly, con- 
sciously and unconsciously, supported the proposition. 
No theory without foregoing practice ; derivation of 
the former from the latter ; application of theory in 
the practice. Hence Ratich and Comenius promulgate 
object instruction, and the latter the value of hand 
labor as well ; hence the pietists introduce object and 
labor instruction into pedagogical practice, while the 
philanthropists take up both, and carry object instruc- 
tion further ; hence, cries Rousseau, " Things ! things ! 
Do not instruct by words, but by facts." Hence is 
Pestalozzi the apostle of objective instruction. 

In an article in the Swiss journal,^ Pestalozzi ex- 
presses his opinion upon the question of practical and 
theoretical instruction. In the second volume, he 
states his views as follows : — 

"Man must seek his chief teaching in his chief work, 
and not alloiu the empty teaching of the head to precede'^ 
the labor of the hand; he must find out his system of 
teaching principally from his work, and not be willing! 
to base his work upon given rules ; hence must the : 

' Maun. Pestalozzi's Selected Works, Vol. III.. 



INDUSTRIAL ESTSTRUCTION. 115 

early teaching of every child relate to individual labor, 
and it may be well to limit it, so that neither teacher 
nor child can easily wander far from it. 

"My readers, we certainly have to thank the nonsense 
with which our children's early years are diverted from 
labor and directed towards books for a world full of 
blockheads ; and certainly the misery of a sickly age 
of an infinite number of human beings is prepared for 
them in the foreign, useless, unserviceable, indigest- 
ible, one-sided, poorly reflected knowledge of their 
early years." 

X. SCHOOL HAND LABOR AND CHOICE OF A PROFES- 
SION. 

To prepare the pupil whom it gives up to life, for 
education in hand labor, is said to be the duty of the 
school, but its duty is not to exercise and train him in 
hand labor. Why it should be the duty of the school 
to make preparation for training in hand labor, and not 
to undertake this training itself, it is difficult to per- 
ceive. But every one can easily understand that it is 
the duty of the school to secure to the children the 
elements of professional as well as mental training. 
In the end, a people does not live by literature, sci- 
ence, and art, but by labor; and the small per 
cent^ of us possessing middle and higher education 

^ According to Dr. Eiigel, Journal of the Imperial Prussian Bu- 
reau of Statistics, in 1871, the male population over ten years 
of age in the ■ Prussian states were distributed in the different 



116 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

can enjoy these beautiful things only because the hand 
labor of the great mass of the people makes it possi- 
ble. Then, from a social, political stand-point, it could 
be more easily and with more valid reasons proved that 
the education provided by the state ought to consider 
hand labor from the first, than it could be shown that 
from the first it must exclusively provide for mental 
training. 

We really do not know what is to be understood 
by a preparation for education in hand labor, but we 
do know that even with the best intentions, our present 
school instruction can not be regarded as such a prepa- 
ration ; but on the contrary, it must be regarded as an 
essential factor for the disuse of hand labor. Upon 
this all men of practical experience are agreed. 

It is asserted by the opponents that if the school 
co-operates in the choice of a profession, it fulfils its 
duties towards the trades. Opinions difier upon the 

grades of education as they are ordinarily distinguished, as fol- 
lows : — 

Classes. Peesons. Pee Cent. 

1. Highest Education . . . 93,000 . . . 1,023 

2. Middle "... 193,000 . . . 2,122 

3. Elementary "... 7,885,423 . . . 86,703 

4. Alphabet "... 933,274. . . 10,152 

Then, 3 and 4 together, equal 96 per cent of the population pos- 
sessing only elementary education, or none at all. 

If the female population were reckoned, there would be a still 
lower ratio of higher and middle and a greater proportion of the 
lower. (See Starke, Privy Councilor of Justice, Crime, and Crim- 
inals in Prussia, from 1854-78.) 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 117 

how of this co-operation. They have only this in com- 
mon, that the teacher, because he best knows the 
pupil's talents and inclinations, by his advice to the 
parents and to the pupil shall exercise this co-operation. 
We shall soon see how far this belief is true. Here we 
shall merely suggest the impossibility of giving this 
advice wherever there are graded schools, or where 
teachers are assigned special branches only, and where 
municipal relations exist. The teachers of which 
branch should and will undertake this co-operation? 
And the teachers of which grade will do it, for the 
children go out into life from different grades ? In this 
respect, the teacher of an ungraded school in a small 
village can do the most. In large places, knowledge 
of the social relations and conditions of the parents is 
out of the way of the teacher, and on this knowledge 
the whole co-operation must be based. Also, in small 
places, where the teacher very well understands the 
condition of the parents, this co-operation in the choice 
of a calling for children of the better classes will not be 
possible, because the parents will not listen to the 
advice of the teacher. The son must become whatever 
the parental property or parental opinion determines. 
In the choice of a profession, practically nothing of 
all the co-operation with the school remains. We 
must, therefore, look for the school to play a more 
effective part in the choice of a profession. 

While, from the co-operation of the school in the 
choice of a profession, some understand that the school 



118 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

provides for it in the manner just mentioned, — that 
each pupil shall pursue the calling for which he is fitted, 
and that poor but gifted children shall, by higher cul- 
ture, be raised to a better social position, — others 
assign to the school the task of guiding more people 
to right callings. By right calling, however, they un- 
derstand, above all, a handicraft, also, perhaps, a com- 
mercial or industrial business, but not the callings of 
teachers, scholars, and officials ; in short, not the so- 
called liberal professions. Every one who does not 
wish to see men divided into castes will declare him- 
self in harmony with the first-mentioned stand-point, 
which, from the point of view of the man, as well as 
of the educator and the national economist, is unassail- 
able. We do not dream, therefore, of disputing it, 
but we cannot refuse to suggest that ^n the society of 
the present day, insurmountable difficulties stand in 
the way of the free choice of a profession. The choice 
of a profession to-day is not alone determined, and 
even not always influenced, by predominating talents 
and inclinations ; but almost exclusively by reference 
to the income and social position which it allows. 
If a member of a prominent family have ever so 
much talent and inclination for carpentry, he can not 
become a joiner, because that is not a calling Avhich 
secures to its possessor a desirable social position. 
Hence, so long as the different human activities are so 
unequally valued economically and morally, freedom 
in the choice of a profession is a delusion. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 119 

The advocates of the second stand-point start from the 
fact that we are suffering from an over-production of 
intelligence. They demand, therefore, that the school 
shall induce tradesmen not to have their sons study, 
but to learn handicraft, for a handicraft, they say, has 
a golden floor. 

We may remark that not mechanics, but scholars, 
officials, advocates of liberal professions, talk in this 
way. Hand laborers themselves, even with spectacled 
eyes, can no longer discover the golden floor of their 
calling ; they come rather in continually augmented 
numbers to the "dogs," or in other words, they sink 
to the proletarian classes. We never hear a mechanic 
speak of the golden floor of his profession. It only 
exists for modern Don Quixotes and social mounte- 
banks. Whoever can still speak of it must have 
passed the last thirty years of social development in 
an enchanted castle. The large manufactory has torn 
away the golden floor, large enterprises stand upon it, 
and hand labor will never again get it back. Mechan- 
ics who direct their sons to the liberal professions know 
very well why they do so. They wish to preserve 
them from the misery of the mechanic's position. The 
parents, especially those of the lower and middle 
classes, in the choice of a profession for their children 
are guided not by vanity, but by a wish to make the 
children happy, happier than they themselves are. 
Since the parents very rightly do not perceive this hap- 
piness in the position of an ordinary paid laborer nor 



120 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

of a mechanic, they assign their sons to the liberal 
professions, to be scholars, teachers, officials, or to 
that army of employees on railroads, in steamboats, 
offices, etc. 

During the last fifteen years the crowding into the 
liberal professions has become so great that a very per- 
ceptible competition already prevails, but increasing 
numbers still press into them. Between 1871 and 
1881, the number of students in the German univer- 
sities increased by six thousand. 

They amounted to, — 

1871-72 14,676 

1872-73 15,190 

1873-74 15,809 

1874-75 15,945 

1875-76 16,191 

1876-77 . 16,807 

1877-78 . . . ^ . . . . 17,611 

1878-79 18,804 

1879-80 20,042 

1880-81 21,163 

1881-82 22,038 

The number of high-school pupils, as well as those 
of the real school, gymnasium, technical and polytech- 
nical institutions, has increased in the same proportion. 
In other countries it is no better than in Germany. In 
the Swiss Journal, 1884, an architect stated that in a 
place like Zurich, often forty, fifty, even ninety appli- 
cants presented themselves for a vacant position, or 
for employment for a few months. "Hereupon," he 
continues, " since it is no better abroad, and in many 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 121 

places even worse, the consolation of emigration van- 
ishes. By a few comparative calculations, we must 
conclude that if for ten years not an architect were to 
be fitted for the calling, there would still be a lack of 
work and an over-supply of men." The German impe- 
rial government has recently disclosed the fact that 
there are in Germany 6,000 unpaid referees (counsel- 
lors), and that to 4,204 positions for magistrates and 
state advocates, 4,684 candidates came. Hence, we 
should not thoughtlessly study. We shall soon be able 
to employ a doctor as cheaply as a factory hand. As 
we know by experience, polytechnic students were, 
a few years ago, at a low discount. With every day 
the army of mental laborers, as well as that of hand 
laborers, increases. How will it end? If the army of 
mental laborers become dissatisfied, and declare war 
upon society, then woe be to it ; then it is lost. No 
social structure, even the most strongly formed, has ever 
yet withstood the united siege of head and hand laborers. 
Mental laborers have, however, already become dis- 
satisfied. A short time ago, a Vienna journalist de- 
scribed them in a masterly naanner. Among other 
things, he said: "If the anarchists were to besiege 
Vienna, I should not on that account lose all self-con- 
trol ; but this small mass of discontented, property- 
less intelligences seems to me fearful, a true scourge 
of God. Perhaps I am too anxious. Perhaps I 
am wrong to say. Who shall be the defence of your 
future, who shall protect us, who shall resist the oppo- 



122 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

sition of pernicious theories? All these fiery cheru- 
bim of good inchnations have become discouraged and 
disappointed strugglers. Why shall they be enthusi- 
astic for us? "What have we to offer them? As the 
times now are, have we any hope, any inducement 
for them? Have they themselves, upon the whole, a 
fortune, a property, any kind of interest to hold from 
us?" 

The dansjer from mental laborers which threatens 
present society is certainly great ; but by warning peo- 
ple against the liberal professions, and advising the 
adoption of trades and business callings, we cannot 
remedy the over-production of intelligent people. 

Over-production of intelligence is only a wave of the 
agitated sea of the social would. This sea can not be 
stilled by preaching against mental over-production, 
and by recommending that the stream of superfluous 
humanity be guided to trades, for, indeed, over-pro- 
duction in the trades has created the over-production 
of intelligence. To preach that people shall turn to 
trades and away from the liberal professions is to order 
the stream to flow to its source, instead of to the sea.^ 

By pushing to and fro on the labor market, human 
merchandise made superfluous by our present form of 
society, the labor question will not be solved, but only 
by removing the cause which makes superfluous men 
who are willing to labor. 

' Only those can trust to the efficacy of such a course who believe 
that social problems can be solved by tricks of legei'demain. , 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 123 

Furthermore, the propositions mentioned do not in 
the least affect the choice of a profession. To lead 
more people to find their proper callings can only 
mean to lead more people to those callings to which 
they, in consequence of their faculties and talents, 
feel themselves drawn, in which they can use their 
physical and mental qualities for their own welfare 
as well as for that of society, and which, therefore, 
secures to them the most satisfaction. 

How each one can obtain that calling most nearly 
corresponding to his natural powers, is the vital ques- 
tion in the choice of a profession. 

Now, it is clear that the propositions mentioned 
will not meet nor in any way answer this question. 
If the representatives of the liberal professions advise 
those who wish to devote themselves to the same to 
turn to trades, such a proceeding would smack, Jirst, 
of selfishness ; and secondly, would have no more bear- 
ing upon the solution of the problem of choice of a 
profession than if the representatives of trades, in 
order to turn competition from their callings, should 
advise that all of those who thought to devote them- 
selves to trades should betake themselves to the liberal 
professions. 

Why do so many people miss their callings ? Be- 
cause neither they themselves, nor their teachers, nor 
their parents know their talents, because neither edu- 
cation nor instruction offers opportunity to learn to 
know them. When have the powers and talents of 



124 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 



pupils been able to show and prove themselves ? In 
the parents' house ? Nearly every opportunity there- 
for is lacking. In the school? There the pupils have 
only to learn to receive and to reproduce ; there they 
are nourished only with theoretical knowledge ; there 
they can show their capability to receive and reproduce, 
but can not show their abilities for creation and inven- 
tion. One side of their nature, and, indeed for most 
men, exactly that upon which the choice of a calling 
depends, the practical, active side, remains unnoticed 
by the school, and for want of exercise can not make 
its appearance. 

The capacity to receive and reproduce is generally 
not by any means s^nionymous with mental power. 
The greatest men are those who have become what 
they are, not by receiving, but by independent labor, 
reflection, and investigation. This capacity stands 
higher than the ability to receive and reproduce. 
This, as well as the circumstance that in the school not 
all the human being, but only a part, is trained to 
activity and developed, explains the fact that so 
many thorough pupils accomplish very little in life, 
while the poor scholars become, perhaps, celebrated 
and able men. Indeed, the majority of the most 
skilful and celebrated men were bad pupils. If we 
would consent to deal in paradoxes, we might say to 
the teachers, " Have the greatest respect for the poor 
pupils, for they will become famous men." 

If the school will contribute anything to the solution 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 125 

of the problem upon the choice of a profession, it must 
allow industrial instruction a place on the programme, 
and so free instruction from one-sidedness. Only by 
industrial instruction will it be possible to become ac- 
quainted with the talents and powers of the pupil, and to 
direct him towards his proper calling. Labor will also 
make the pupil himself conscious of his capabilities. 
In the instruction, the difference between clever and 
dull pupils will become equalized. It may, perhaps, be 
shown that the pupil who, in theoretical instruction, 
is skilful, in practical work is awkward, and vice versa. 
By practical employment, the mind of one pupil will 
best develop ; that of another, by theoretical informa- 
tion. This will lead to a correct estimate of the pupils 
among each other and on the part of the teacher. This 
correct valuation of all the powers must be in the 
highest degree beneficial to school life. 

XI. THE DECLINE OF THE TEACHER'S POSITION. 

The question, By whom shall industrial instruction 
be imparted ? is by the majority of the opponents cor- 
rectly answered. The teacher, and not hand laborers 
who are pedagogically untrained. In this respect they 
place the pedagogical stand-point at the head, but only 
in order to more effectively unite to it their lamenta- 
tion over the decline of the teacher's position. Even 
now, they say, the time in the training school is not 
sufficient for the teacher to acquire the necessary edu- 



126 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

cation ; but what will it be if he has to learn carpentry, 
lock-making, bookbinding, turning, carving, etc. ? In 
this case, the teacher must degenerate into a me- 
chanic. He will become a bungler, and the conscious- 
ness of professional dignity will be lost. What a 
frightful outlook for the teacher's position ! Fortu- 
nately, it is too fanciful. Let us be calm ! The learn- 
ing of all trades in their full extent can and will not 
be necessary ; but only the learning of the elements of 
a number of handicrafts, or rather, we shall say, of 
hand labor. The elements of all handicrafts, however, 
are as simple and as like each other as the elements of 
all sciences are simple and like each other. The Klau- 
son Cass efforts for the elevation of hand labor are 
depreciatingly mentioned, because of the suggestion 
that in six weeks, from five to seven kinds of trades, 
each of which requires several years' apprenticeship, 
can be taught. Now, we are the last to over-estimate 
the value of the Klauson Cass efforts ; they will not 
elevate hand labor, because it can not be elevated, but 
only transformed ; but they have proved to all the 
world that for learning an ordinary handicraft three or 
four years are not necessary ; that in a few months 
one can learn several kinds of hand labor. The results 
of every course of industrial instruction, as well as 
the performance of pupils in schools for hand labor, 
support this evidence. By a few hours' instruction, 
weekly, in the different departments of hand labor, it 
is astonishing to an impartial person what readiness 



INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 127 

children will in a short time acquire. We have no idea 
what rich treasures of practical capability lie hidden in 
our children, and what immense productive power we, 
to the injury of the children and of the nation, allow 
to be arrested and perverted to dead knowledge, in- 
fectious weariness, crippling precocity, and poisonous 
idleness. May we soon gain this knowledge. 

Let us compare the quickness and ease with which 
children appropriate skill and practical knowledge with 
the slowness and difficulty with which they advance 
in mental capacity and theoretical knowledge. If we 
inquire after the cause of this slow progress in the 
last, and the quick advance in the first case, perhaps 
no other than the following ground of explanation can 
be discovered. 

Child nature implies action rather than abstraction, 
meditation, and receiving ; the child's interest and 
capabilities are greater for practical than for theoreti- 
cal instruction ; by the first he is better satisfied and 
incited than by the last. 

Now, should not the quickness with which children 
advance in industrial instruction, and the pleasure 
with which they work, be a suggestion to educators 
regarding the excellence and naturalness of this 
instruction? And should not educators who make, or 
pretend to make, the nature of the child the ground- 
work of their educational principles and efforts , first 
of all turn their most earnest attention to this subject? 
We think so. 



128 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

The Klauson Cass and similar efforts were not 
needed specially to prove that a few months are quite 
sufficient for learning the elements of several handi- 
crafts, for we have ourselves proved this. We have 
learned several trades, each in a few weeks, so well 
that we could employ ourselves creditably in them. 

The teacher's profession has no need to fear this new 
task ; it can be mastered, and will not lead to bun- 
gling and to loss of professional dignity. No one will 
say that one who has a skilful hand, and is experienced 
in practical things, will be the worse teacher. Why 
should hand labor lead to bungling, and not one of 
the superfluous subjects which during the last thirty 
years have been admitted to the programme of teach- 
ers' training? We might just as correctly say that for 
the teacher to receive only the elements of natural 
science and of historical and mathematical discipline 
leads to bungling. Bungling in teaching does not arise 
because the teacher is not instructed to the fullest ex-j 
tent in all sciences and skill, but it arises from the fact 
that in the effort to give them a great deal, the elements 1 
are very carelessly passed over. Bungling arises prin- 
cipally because the teacher is too little instructed in the 
art of using these elements in the instruction^ and can 
not impart to the pupil that which is of value. 

It never can, by reasons deduced from the sub- 
ject itself, be proved that industrial instruction will 
cause the teacher to bungle in his calling. Accord-, 
ing to what we, in the foregoing paragraph, have 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 129 

stated and proved in reference to the training and 
educative value of hand labor, we are authorized 
in asserting that the industrial instruction which the 
teacher receives will not hinder, but considerably ad- 
vance and assist him in his calling. Industrial instruc- 
tion will strengthen, deepen, broaden, and correct his 
knowledge. It will give this knowledge the first 
right relation to life, and elevate the understanding for 
life. Quite as important as this is the power to do, 
with which the teacher will by this instruction be fur- 
nished. In practical things, the young teacher of the 
present day is really a child, and can be imposed upon 
by every tradesman's apprentice or farmer's servant. 
His practical skill will make a great diiference ; in the 
esteem of the public he will rise not a little. The 
increased esteem of the public, with a feeling of 
security in the practical things of life, must impart 
to the teacher a very justifiable feeling of self-respect. 
If by this the unauthorized self-esteem founded upon 
school knowledge, instead of upon social and moral 
worth, should be lost, it would only prove advan- 
tageous to the teacher's position. We are suffering 
generally from an undue estimation of dead theories as 
opposed to practical living, knowledge, and ability, and 
to the social and moral worth of men. Yet, perhaps, 
practical living knowledge is quite as great and surely 
quite as important as dead theories ; and without ques- 
tion, he who only knows what is and can be taught 
in the schools, knows very little. Very many, and in 
9 



130 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTIOX. 

the end the best, things can not be taught because 
they can not be phinncd and formulated into theories. 
Above all, the influences which move the present time 
can not be taught, because they have not yet become 
formulated into a system. 

Industrial instruction will not make a blunderer of 
a teacher, but will make him more skilful in his call- 
ing ; and out of the practical training of the teacher, 
more profit to the school will grow than out of learned 
awkwardness. In the professional art school, in Vi- 
enna, it has been found that a young man who has 
previously followed some practical avocation, always 
finds his right place comparatively quicker in his new 
teacher's position (departmental teacher for institu- 
tions in which apprentices and workmen receive a 
higher professional development) than the one who 
brings with him merely school training. Moreover, 
among the teachers of common schools the same is 
found to be true. We may here remark that a large 
number of prominent educators and schoolmen had 
been practically employed before their educational 
activity began. 

In the normal school, industrial instruction will find 
a place without theoretical instruction being abridged. 
We have already explained the reasons for this (Chap- 
ter v., VIII.). Here we shall merely remark that if 
industrial instruction has been pursued in all the pre- 
vious school grades, it will require but a limited place 
in the programme of the training school. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 131 

The training of teachers for industrial instruction 
offers no difficulty, and by its introduction into the 
school will not (as has been asserted) by any means 
involve the necessity for two kinds of teachers. The 
teacher can very well master the new task, and if his 
prejudice has disappeared, will very gladly undertake 
it. Probably the imparting of industrial instruction 
will become a favorite employment of the teacher, 
because the change refreshes and the labor gladdens 
him. ^ 

XII. THE UNION or STUDY AND LABOR IN THE SCHOOL. 

Just as in the public school, the teacher in the school 
of study is, at the same time, to be the teacher in the 
industrial school, so study and labor will not be sepa- 
rated ; thus practice and theory and theory and practice 
will go hand in hand. It is not sufficient that the work 
of the industrial school be selected according to peda- 
gogical principles and pursued with educational pur- 
pose ; the instruction of the school for study must also 
be connected with it. If the labor of the industrial 
school be separated from theoretical instruction, then, 
notwithstanding its educational purpose, it loses much 
of its attraction and power as mental training. On the 
other hand, if the theory be not embodied in the labor, 
the pupil will not be awakened to the real life ; the 
theory will die, or make the pupil weary. The prin- 
ciple is this : let that which has been created by 
the pupil be theoretically comprehended, and let that 



132 INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 

which is theoretically comprehended be constructed. 
In creatmg, let the mind of the child be elevated to 
higher discernments and views, and let what is mentally 
comprehended be physically expressed, so that it may 
fix itself in consciousness, and may show how it can be 
converted to practical use. We can state with satisfac- 
tion that the advocates who wish industrial instruction 
to be pursued as preparation for trades, without any 
reference to the school, are very few in number. The 
predominating number of the friends of industrial in- 
struction, although they wish it to be separated from 
the school of study, wish to unite it with theoretical 
information. From this stand-point to the organic 
union of study and labor in one school the distance is 
naturally not far. The present condition of juxtaposi- 
tion is grounded, we well know, on the actual relations, 
but it is nothing more than a necessary expedient. 
As has been demanded by several great educators, 
the aim must be to secure an organic combination. 
Francke based several branches of instruction upon 
labor. Rousseau advocated the instruction of Emile 
by labor, and wished to see the two united. By labor, 
an interest in theoretical instruction will be created. 
Pestalozzi says : " This A B C of the exercise of 
the limbs (here the method of industrial instruction 
is understood) must naturally be united and brought 
into harmony with the A B C of sense exercises, and 
all previous exercises of thinking with the exercises 
of number, and teaching of form." Fichte demands 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION". 133 

that in national education, study and labor shall be 
united. 

The friends of industrial instruction who wish to see 
the school for labor go side by side with the school for 
study may be divided into two groups. 

In one group belong all those who, like Ziller, regard 
hand labor as a necessary preparation for life, but deny 
its value for the harmonious training for mankind. 
We hope we have shown clearly how erroneous this 
impression is. Here we merely suggest that it is in 
the highest degree strange that necessary preparation 
for life should be placed in opposition to the general 
training of mankind. We are of the opinion that it is no 
opposition, but an inseparable element of human train- 
ing. For, without preparatory training for life, what 
is the value of general human training? Ziller ban- 
ishes industrial instruction to side classes as an unpeda- 
gogic manner of instruction. From what we have 
already said, we can judge with what right he does 
this. Ziller always wishes the connection between the 
schools of labor and study, or, as he says, between 
schools of teaching and education, to be preserved. 
The two must constantly work together, and go hand 
in hand with each other. The boundaries which Ziller 
draws between the two are purely doctrinal, and by 
practice will soon be effaced. As soon as the fact is 
recognized that in training and educative value, indus- 
trial instruction is equal to the best, and indeed superior 
to most branches of instruction, they must disappear. 



134 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

To the second group belong those by whom the 
method of this union of the schools for study and labor 
is not yet discovered, or appears not yet sufficiently 
perfected. This objection has its authority, yet it is 
not of a theoretical, but of a practical nature. 

If only a sense of the necessity for such a union has 
become general, and we seek the method, the lack of 
method will be easily remedied. So far, however, 
very few have searched, and we cannot wonder that it 
is not yet or not entirely discovered. With regard to 
the method of union of instruction in labor and study, 
as well as to the method of industrial instruction in 
particular, Pestalozzi, in what he says of his still un- 
discovered A B C of the art, touches the point. It is, 
however, quite natural that a thing which no one 
seeks is seldom discovered ; but if we would seek it 
with perhaps a little of the earnestness with which we 
are accustomed to seek even small advantages in finan- 
cial schemes, then it would he very easy to find, and 
once found, it would certainly be a great gift to human- 
ity. If mankind were compelled to seek it, then it 
would be most quickly discovered, for necessity is the 
mother of invention. 

How do we think the combination of labor and in- 
struction can be secured? Perhaps according to the 
following principles and opinions. Explanations in 
detail cannot have a place here. 

Labor is the centre of youthful education and train- 
ing. Since we are convinced, however, that there is 



INDUSTKIAL INSTRUCTION. 135 

no centre, where all instruction, according to the edu- 
cational stand-point, can unite, then we cannot re- 
gard labor as a centre to which we desire to unite all 
instruction. Not all of that which the child is taught 
can be united to the child's labor, because not every- 
thing can be made by the child, and very much can 
not be at all represented by labor. The observation 
and the word must also instruct. 

The genuine Froebelian kindergarten is to be organ- 
ically united to the school. Until the tenth year, labor 
stands in the foreground ; from the tenth to the thir- 
teenth year, labor and instruction can be equal in 
importance ; and from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, 
instruction will be in the foreground. While, until the 
thirteenth year, labor essentially precedes instruction, 
from that time forward can instruction lead to labor ; 
while, until the thirteenth year, the work is princi- 
pally done from models, the pupil may now work 
from drawings, until he is able to make his own 
designs. 

The first instruction in arithmetic is connected with 
stick-laying ; to this end, the sticks must indicate units 
of measure. Step by step with the work goes further 
instruction in arithmetic. Form relations of labor 
products as of material for labor are conveyed and 
expressed in measure, weight, and value. With the 
paper and pasteboard work, instruction in space and 
drawing is connected. Modelling precedes drawing. 
Before geometrical instruction is given, geometrical 



136 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

constructions with small sticks are made ; or they may 
be cut from paper, embroidered, grouped in colors, and 
pasted. Instruction in elementary stereometry is pre- 
ceded by the construction of paper boxes in different 
forms and for different purposes, as well as the con- 
struction of stereometrical bodies which serve no prac- 
tical purpose. Instruction in nature knowledge, i. e., 
natural science, is connected with labor in the school- 
garden, working with soil, animal and vegetable mat- 
ter ; instruction in physics with the construction of 
levellers, elevators, rollers, suction pipes, etc. In the 
higher grades the branches of instruction lead again 
to labor. Leaf, flower and fruit pieces, parts of the 
human body and of the lower animals, may be mod- 
elled and carved. The things made may perhaps also 
be drawn. Magic-lanterns, camera-obscura, weighing 
machines, and other objects useful in instruction may 
be constructed. The higher classes may provide the 
lower with material as well as models for observation 
and instruction. The description of working material, 
tools, manner of labor, offers a finer choice and a bet- 
ter quality of themes for discussion and essays than 
description of battles never witnessed, and the discus- 
sion of scientific and literary questions. 

Yet since this subject is not the aim of our work, 
we must not digress. These suggestions must suffice 
to show how easily, naturally, and unconstrainedly 
the union of the school for study and labor may be 
effected. 



INDXJSTRIAL INSTRUCTIOlSr. 137 

XIII. METHOD OF INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

The opponents of industrial instruction assert that 
in the Klauson Cass efforts there can be no question 
of practical form and peculiar method. Now, although 
this reproach does not touch industrial instruction, we 
shall accept it as referring to every phase of indus- 
trial instruction. There, however, it does not apply, 
for in this same instruction, practical forms and pe- 
culiar methods can be discussed. Of course, he who 
does not wish to see and hear will not see the sun nor 
hear the thunder. Certainly, neither the practical form 
nor method is finished, but the foundation work to this 
end has been done. 

In order to be able to assert that industrial instruc- 
tion is not yet practically systematized and method- 
ized, we must ignore the earnest work of many 
thorough educators and the literature of a century. 
The reproach regarding the impracticable form of 
industrial instruction, whatever notion may underlie 
the words "impracticable form," is entirely unfounded. 
If the idea be so understood that it can be said 
that industrial instruction is not yet so organized as 
to offer practical benefit for life, then it is entirely 
opposed to every kind of industrial instruction, and 
besides, an assertion is made which the experience of 
centuries will refute. Furthermore, if it be understood 
to mean that industrial instruction is not yet fitted to 
be united with and to be of service to theoretical 



138 INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 

instruction, such an opinion will be also refuted by 
experience, for in many celebrated educational in- 
stitutions this union and advantage to theoretical 
instruction has already been tested. If these two 
objections against industrial instruction were not dis- 
proved by experience, they could by logical proofs be 
very easily shaken. 

Finally, if by the impracticable form of industrial 
instruction we may understand a form which is not 
yet sufficiently perfected to be introduced into the 
organism of the public school, this objection may be 
met by stating the fact that industrial instruction has 
been introduced into the public schools of France, 
and has long held an important place in the acade- 
mies. Shall not that which is possible in France be 
also possible in German countries which are richer in 
educational experiences and opinions ? And shall that 
which is good and possible for private institutions be 
bad and impossible for public education? Perhaps 
labor is recommended as a means of training and edu- 
cation for neglected and feeble-minded children, and 
rightly, too, for the educators in houses of correction 
and institutions for the feeble-minded cannot speakj 
too highly of the training and educational influence of ' 
labor. Is the conclusion unfounded that that which asj 
training and education works so effectively on the] 
feeble-minded and neglected will work still better upon! 
the healthy-minded and the cared for? And can the! 
public school so easily exclude such an important] 



INDUSTRIAL mSTRUCTIOlSr. 139 

means of discipline and education? Even the most 
outspoken opponents recommend industrial instruction 
for the poor. They appear to appreciate strangely the 
historical fact that, until now, industrial instruction 
was not employed for the poor, but essentially for 
the training and education of the rich and most dis- 
tinguished people. So it was regarded by Locke, 
Francke, Basedow, Salzmann ; so it is to-day regarded 
by Keferstein, Barth, and others. Yet we must accept 
the essentially educational point of view. For social 
as well as educational reasons, we would be obliged to 
take the field with all our might against an industrial 
instruction which bears in itself the mark of contempt 
and civil inequality. It would be a degradation of 
labor which could not have been worse in the old slave 
states, and it must be calculated to sharpen rather than 
equalize social contrasts. 

In German countries industrial instruction is of a 
sufficiently practical form to warrant its introduction 
into the organism of the public school. 

Germany has had the good fortune to bring to the 
front a man who has not only recognized the far-reach- 
ing signification of labor in youthful training and 
education, but who has practically arranged and sys- 
tematized labor for early childhood. We mean Froe- 
bel, the founder of the Kindergarten. He has done 
the most important and the hardest work of practically 
systematizing and methodizing industrial instruction. 
We only need to build carefully upon it. Industrial 



140 INDUSTRIAL ENSTEUCTION. 

instruction in the school signifies only an extension of 
Froebel's idea. Already, long before the appearance 
of the industrial-instruction movement, this extension 
was taken in charge, and had borne its fruit. A rich 
literature, richer than upon many other subjects, al- 
ready exists. Shall nothing useful be found in it? 
Surely there is much to be found, and we assert Ihat 
in order to bring together the most rational plan of 
industrial instruction, only a sifting choice is needed. 
A subject of instruction which, like labor, unites a 
practical system and method for the earliest childhood 
can offer no difficulties against a wide development for 
the school-going age ; and it offers none, for in all 
cases observation can seize the idea to be embodied, 
and an uninterrupted progress from the physically and 
mentally simple to the complex, from the near to the 
remote, from the known to the unknown, is always, 
possible. 

The mutual instruction of the pupils by each other 
can be applied not only without injury, but with ad- 
vantage, as is the case to-day in the schools of tech- 
nology. The instruction may be class instruction ; in 
the higher grades, grouped and individual instruction 
is admissible. Kinds of work are chosen from an 
educational stand-point, with regard to tlieoretical in- 
struction and especially to the prominent needs of the 
country. 

Granted that industrial instruction is not yet in all 
its details practically systematized and methodized ; 



\ 



INDUSTRIAL ESrSTRUCTION. 141 

have we on that accouot a right to look down upon 
this defect, which after all is only relative? Among 
our present school subjects, are there not perhaps 
some with primitive systems and incomplete methods? 
Has instruction in morals and manners until now been 
practically systematized and methodized up to the 
teaching of citizens' rights and duties ? And have we 
not for several decades been disputing about methods 
of instruction in history, without coming to any agree- 
ment ? Or during the last fifty years has not a num- 
ber of subjects been introduced into the schools, whose 
practical system and particular methods at the time of 
their introduction could hardly be spoken of? Before 
a subject has been widely introduced, is it at all pos- 
sible to perfect a method of instruction for it ? 

The reproach of lack of practical system is always 
raised against every innovation ; but it has never yet 
hindered its being introduced and carried through. 
It is entirely insufficient for the refusal of a justifia- 
ble innovation. Those who oppose the introduction of 
such with such an objection, do not know what logical 
heroes they are. They might as well forbid that any 
one should go into water for the first time, and argue 
that swimming is not yet practically systematized. 
As if it could be practically systematized without going 
into the water ! This reason has never been sufficient 
to keep us from innovation, and rightly, for if it had, 
we should have remained in the deepest barbarism. 
Civil society would not yet have been introduced, 



142 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

because under feudal influences it could not have been 
practically systematized. The principles of object 
and objective instruction would not yet have been 
introduced/ for under the dominion of the catechetical 
word instruction and learning by heart, it could not 
have been practically systematized and especially 
methodized, etc. 

In so far as in small institutions industrial instruc- 
tion can be p^^actically systematized and methodized, it 
has been done, and reproach as to failure in practical 
system and method cannot be brought against its gen- 
eral introdMction. Practical evidence has sufficiently 
shown that iyidustrial instruction has a high disci- 
plinary and educative value, and can only with the 
greatest advantage to theoretical instruction become 
united with it. 



'By object instruction, reference is made to the object lesson; 
objective instruction implies all instruction wMch requires the 
exercise of the observing powers. 



i 



INDUSTKIAL INSTRUCTION. 143 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT DO THE CLASSIC EDUCATORS SAY OF INDUSTEIAL 
INSTRUCTION? 

In the first paragraph of the last chapter we pointed 
out the characteristic fact that the opponents of indus- 
trial instruction avoid the principal question, viz., that 
of the educational necessity for hand labor, or its inju- 
rious influence. In the same way, or rather with much 
narrower considerations, they pass over the opinions of 
the classic educators in favor of hand labor. And yet 
we should think that those who say the opposite of 
what the great educators have expressed, and those 
who recommend not to do what they (i. e., the great 
educators) have done, might feel it a duty to show 
how sadly the celebrated thinkers and experts were in 
error in regard to the disciplinary and educative value 
of hand labor. 

So long as this error is not exposed, we cannot be 
required to exchange the authority of the classical edu- 
cators for that of the opponents of industrial instruc- 
tion, and especially we cannot reckon all the prominent 
schoolmen among these opponents. 

In the course of our argument, we had an opportu- 



144 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

nity to present a few verdicts of famous educators in 
favor of hand labor, and we may be allowed to quote a 
few more. 

Comenius argued for it somewhat after the follow- 
ing manner : " The human body needs movement and 
occupation." 

Hand labor can furnish these, and for this reason, 
in order to prepare for life properly, it is necessary. 
Little children must become accustomed to labor and 
constant employment, whether this be of earnest work 
or play, that they may learn not to endure weariness. 
Older children ought to know the more important 
things about trades, if only that they may avoid being 
too grossly ignorant of what is going on in human life, 
or it may be that the natural inclination by which they 
are most strongly drawn, may the more easily show 
itself (choice of calling) . " To the thing worth know- 
ing, the practicable ought to be united ; the activity 
of deeds can be joined to the knowledge of things." 
All that is to be learned must be learned actively. 
Together with the senses, the mind, heart, and under- 
standing, the hand shall constantly be refined. Locke 
demands that his noble pupil shall learn one real hand- 
icraft : yes, perhaps two or three, but one particularly. 
He emphasizes the educative and moralizing value of 
hand labor. Children shall be instructed to make their 
own playthings, for this will accustom them to look to 
themselves and to their own efforts for help in their 
emergencies. They may thereby learn moderation in 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 145 

their wishes, attention, industry, reflection, ingenuity, 
and economy, — qualities which will be useful to them 
as adults, hence cannot be too early learned nor too 
deeply grounded. Rousseau says : " I insist that Emile 
learn one handicraft. If I employ a child in the work- 
shop instead of chaining him to a book, then his hands 
work to the benefit of his mind.^^ He becomes a sage, 
and thinks himself to be only a laborer. Emile must 
himself construct the apparatus for instruction in phys- 
ics, " for," says Rousseau, " it can not be disputed 
that from things which we have in this way learnt 
(i. e., by work), we receive much clearer and more 
exact ideas than those we appropriate through the in- 
structions of others ; besides this, by not accustoming 
ourselves in a cowardly and slavish manner to submit 
our reason to the authority of another, we sharpen the 
mind to find relations, to connect concepts, to invent 
instruments, far more than we should by accepting 
everything as it is offered, and thereby leaving the 
mind to relax into inactivity." By accustoming him to 
exercise and hand labor, Rousseau will imperceptibly 
create in Emile a taste for rqflection and study. Labor 
is then the means for awakening and training the men- 
tal powers. 

Francke, as well as Basedow and Salzmann, intro- 
duced hand labor into their schools. At Francke's, in 
the school for children of the higher classes, some 
branches of instruction were based upon labor, and 
the instruction led to labor and was supplemented 

10 



146 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

by it. As we have seen, Salzmann expresses himself 
upon the mental training power of labor exactly in the 
same way as Rousseau and Locke, but he emphasizes 
its moralizing influence more than either. He rebuts 
the objections of pedagogues against industrial instruc- 
tion with the cutting remark : " The greatest number of 
these objections arise from the fact that the fewest 
teachers have learned hand labor ; hence they will try 
to condemn this kind of education and make it ridic- 
ulous." Still more energetically than all the prede- 
cessors, Pestalozzi expresses himself in favor of hand 
labor. Only listen : — 

""With every day it became clearer to him" (to his 
schoolmaster Gliiphi) "that industry, the physical activ- 
ity of our race, is the true, sacred, and eternal means 
for the union of the whole circuit of our powers into a 
single, common force, the force of humanity. Every 
day he saw more how industry trains the understand- 
ing and gives force to the feelings of the heart; how it 
guards the powers and purity of life from the deadly 
wasting of the senses, closes the gates of the imagination 
against error, blunts the loquacious point of the idle 
tongue, preserves the sense of duty in our nature from 
its ruin, leads away from foibles, preserves us from re- 
garding our flippant chatter about the deed as the deed 
itself, and our gabble over heroism as heroic greatness, 
and our useless empty dreams about the divine forces 
of faith and love as these forces themselves." These 
higher views of human development were the reasons 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 147 

why he admitted into his school the turning-lathe, the 
joiners' bench, the bobbin, sewing cushions, etc. 

By the side of the eight propositions in favor of 
hand labor here presented, and by the side of those we 
have already cited, the following propositions may be 
selected and formulated from his works, especially 
from his principal work, " How Gertrude teaches her 
Children," Letter XII. : — 

1. Only by the development of the physical activi- 
ties can man attain inner satisfaction. 

2. The education of the activities does not coincide 
with the education in knowledge ; the former is not 
limited to the latter, but surpasses it, and for the peo- 
ple is more important. 

3. Industrial instruction is more educative than 
instruction in knowledge. The latter, in its one- 
sidedness, is a hindrance to the development of phys- 
ical skill. "In order to be able to do, we must in 
every case do; in order to know, we need in many 
cases only remain passive ; in many cases we need only 
see and hear. 

4. Hand labor is the foundation and guide to morality. 

5. Without hand labor no harmonious development, 
no human discipline. 

As we are not writing a history of industrial instruc- 
tion, we must stop here. The foregoing suffices to show 
that among the great educators the greatest harmony 
prevails in regard to the disciplinary and educative 
value of hand labor, as well as to the necessity for it. 



148 mDUSTKIAL INSTRUCTION. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL NECESSITY FOE INDUSTRIAL 
INSTRUCTION. — SUPPLEMENTARY RfiSUM^. 

We have now finished with the objections of the 
opponents of industrial instruction, and have shown 
that they are partly without foundation, and partly do 
not in any way apply to the subject in hand. In doing 
this, we have found opportunity to bring forward nearly 
all our reasons for the educational and social necessity 
of industrial instruction. It remains, however, for us 
to supplement some and to secure a better view of all. 

Man is not only a speculating, but in a much higher 
degree, a willing and acting being. This last side of 
human nature is prominently shown in the child. The 
child wills, ^ and acts much and thinks but little. 
Our present school, however, fosters chiefly the specu- 
lative side of the child's nature, and neglects the 
willing and acting. It is guilty of a great one-sidcd- 
ness, and violates the laws of development in the, 
child. The child has a natural inclination for move- 



' The word wills, here, is in the sense of wishes or desires ; does 
not refer to will, so called. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 149 

ment : the school compels it to sit still in the same spot 
for hours. The child has a natural inclination to em- 
ploy itself : the school forces its attention towards theo- 
retical instruction, for which it has no interest, because 
the benefits lie far from its needs and its circle of vision. 
Because the child has no interest in instruction, we can 
only by artificial means gain its attention and concentra- 
tion. The one-sided, artificial mental irritation and 
tension, without lively interest on the child's part, causes 
mental over-irritation and weakening. Much sitting 
in the same place, without simultaneous movement 
of the other parts of the body, is, for the physical 
development, in the highest degree injurious. The im- 
provement of the body by practical activity is entirely 
neglected, and, owing to lack of timely awakening and 
employment, a multitude of valuable, practical, artistic 
talents and capabilities come to nothing. The whole 
instruction has too little reference to practical life, and 
hence, instead of preparing one for it, alienates one 
from it. 

These objections can justly be made against the 
school, although it must be said that it is not alone 
guilty of the injuries mentioned. The school, too, is a 
development, neither planned beforehand nor preceded 
by insight. According to the better views gained, it 
is our duty to improve that which it is at present. 
Before these glaring evils it is unmanly to hide the 
head like the ostrich, and to declare that they do 
not exist, and that merely because one is a part of the 



150 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

school, because one is a teacher. We teachers did not 
make the school, and hence are not alone responsible 
for its evils, which naturally are only obvious to an ad- 
vanced insight. Quite as much responsibility for these 
evils rests upon the authorities, the statesmen, and the 
people. Hence, the improvement of the school system 
is a question which concerns not only the teacher, but 
the whole nation. If upon this point the teachers 
once get a right position, they will grasp all questions 
of school improvement with the right objectivity and 
in the right light. 

Without doubt, the evils mentioned of our present 
school could be removed by industrial instruction, 
pursued according to educational principles and with 
pedagogical aims. 

Industrial instruction is throughout not only a 
powerful means for the promotion of objective in- 
struction ; it is not only the best kind of objective 
instruction ; it is not only an extension of objective 
instruction, as has already been said by its advocates; 
but it is more than all that, for it has : — 

First. A great educational value. 

Second. A significant mental and physical disci- 
plining power. 

Third. A deep-reaching social and moralizing in- 
fluence. 

The great educational value of industrial instruction 
consists in : — 

1. That it satisfies and cultivates the child's in- 



INDUSTEIAL INSTRUCTION. 151 

stinct for activity ; that it nourishes this instinct and • 
directs it towards the beautiful and the useful, and that 
by it the most important part of the child's nature will 
receive justice. 

The unfolding of the good side of human nature, and 
for the nature of man to receive its due, means, how- 
ever, to remove the ground support from the so-called 
bad sides of human nature, and arrest their growth. 
As the devil is a fallen angel, so are most, if not all, 
the so-called bad sides of a man merely suppressed, 
arrested, crippled, and misguided good sides of his 
nature. Human nature is neither good nor bad ; it 
only becomes bad, i. e., it turns against the interest 
of the species, and if it is slighted, avenges itself, 
just as a law of nature when it is slighted avenges 
itself. The undervaluing of the instinct for activity, 
and the impossibility under existing social relations of 
giving it its due, — these are the sources of a great 
multitude of human faults and infirmities. Let us 
seek to stop them {i. e., the sources), instead of 
merely trying to remove their effects. 

2. That it awakens a lively interest and pleas- 
ure in labor and its products, and enables the child 
by its own efforts to secure this interest and pleasure. 
The articles produced by the labor of the child, ar- 
ticles of real use, create in him a feeling of capa- 
bility, awaken his self-confidence, and give him inner 
satisfaction. 

Our whole material as well as mental culture rests 



152 ESTDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

upon labor ; hence, the prmcipal task of education 
must be to awaken and educate the rishig generation to 
an interest and joy in it, for this at the same time im- 
phes the advancement of culture. 

Pleasure in labor provides against idle, foolish, im- 
moral dissipation. The feeling of capability and of 
his own usefulness raises the feeling of dignity and 
self-confidence in the child, and preserves it from error. 
The living interest in things worthy of eifort and to be 
reached by his own strength, closes the door on all un- 
bridled wishes and weakening dreams, with all their 
enticements, and the satisfaction attained by labor re- 
turns constantly to that from which it flows, — to labor. 

3. That it, without artificial means, forces the child 
to concentration, attention, and perseverance. Who- 
ever will accomplish anything by labor must concen- 
trate himself, must be attentive and persevering, other- 
wise it will not succeed, and the mistakes are more 
easily manifested than in school work. Besides, he 
who is interested in a thing observes gladly, concen- 
trates himself willingly, and perseveres without mur- 
mur. 

4. That it nourishes thought and will, and directs 
it towards the good and the useful, and permits and 
teaches to transform both into the deed, which again 
warrants a high satisfaction and awakens dignity. 

Thought needs a subject ; the will needs an aim. 
If no attractive, permissible object be ofiered the 
thoughts, then they seize upon improper ones, and if 



INDUSTEIAL INSTKUCTION. 153 

no rational aim be set for the will, it chooses for itself 
an irrational and bad one. History and experience 
satisfactorily prove the correctness of what has been 
said. A worthy object of childish thought, however, 
is labor. 

The significant educative power of industrial instruc- 
tion lies in : — 

1. That it awakens and trains the powers and tal- 
ents which would otherwise remain dormant and un- 
trained. 

It is a fact that many talents, if at an early age they 
are not properly fostered, become arrested. Once ar- 
rested, it is very difficult for them to be called forth 
again, and still more so for them to be developed. 
The present school for study hardly awakens and 
trains the artistic talents at all. Thousands of tal- 
ented persons and hundreds of artistic geniuses miss 
their destiny and are lost to humanity, and fail in 
their callings as well as in their lives. The history 
of many a disappointed life and even of many a crimi- 
nal's life is nothing more than the tragical history of 
arrested artistic talent or genius. Oh ! they are often 
heart-breaking, those histories ! 

Shall the rich artistic powers always be lost for the 
beautifying of life? Shall thousands forever stagnate 
mentally because the point of Archimedes from which 
their mental life would have originated (we mean 
artistic interests ) was not sufficiently fertilized ? 

2. That it sets in activity the greatest imaginable 



154 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

number of senses and powers, and secures knowl- 
edge and information which no other instruction can 
secure. 

There are knowledge and understanding which can 
only be gained by labor, and it is an educational ex- 
perience much too lightly valued that the minds of 
many children only rise by practical activity, and that 
the mind so aroused is of the stronger and more 
progressive kind. Only the original mind, however, 
is progressive ; only the original mind can educate 
itself by self-activity. 

3. That it first gives a foundation for much theo- 
retical instruction, and places the aim intelligently 
before the children. 

4. That it must serve as a test for much theoretical 
instruction and as sufficient reason for its necessity and 
practical utility, — at least for the understanding of the 
children. What appears to us established, necessary, 
and practical does not necessarily seem so to the child. 
If he is not educated to be a faithful echo, then the 
proofs for everything must be laid open before him. 
His mind as yet is too weak for theoretical proof, or 
he does not believe in it, or the theoretical proof is 
difficult to produce ; then it must be practically per- 
formed. 

5. That it secures knowledge and understanding 
much more easily, quickly, impressively, and hence 
more lastingly. That which is apprehended through 
many senses and powers gains admittance into the 



INDUSTRIAL INSTEUCTION. 155 

mind more quickly and easily, makes a greater and 
more lasting impression. That which has gone through 
the hand, foot, and head, so to speak, is only really 
our property. 

6. That it teaches the child to value, observe, in- 
vestigate, test, compare, and invent. 

He who will construct an object, whether after a 
model or a drawing, must take careful account of the 
important relations of the three dimensions ; the work- 
ing material must be chosen and tested in regard to 
size, color, and quality ; then the tools must be chosen 
and examined as to usefulness ; and finally, in working, 
he must keep in mind the measure, and compare the 
form of the whole as well as of the individual parts. 

During the work, involuntary observations of the 
materials and tools will be made,. and investigation and 
comparison will be employed ; continually estimations, 
measurements, and verifications are necessary. During 
the work a crowd of contingencies and difficulties 
which compel observation, investigation, comparison, 
and invention, make their appearance. 

7. That it exercises the senses, hands, and members, 
makes them skilful in practical activity, and keeps the 
body sound and fresh. 

All that has been said of the educative value of in- 
dustrial instruction applies also to its refining influence, 
for everything that educates also refines ; as conversely, 
all culture educates, although to a much less degree. 
All education is discipline, but not all discipline is 



156 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

education ; whether and to what degree culture is 
educative, depends materially upon the process of at- 
taining it. 

In favor of the social and moralizing influence of 
this branch of instruction, we could, in the first place, 
advance what we have said of its , educative value, for 
under education in a narrow sense we understand only 
a moral completeness or perfection. Morals and mo- 
rality, however, are of value chiefly in social life. 
They express, in the first place, what we owe to others 
and to ourselves in regard to others. 

Furthermore, the moralizing social influence of in- 
dustrial instruction lies in : — 

1. That it comprehends the whole man from the 
good side of his nature, and brings only his good 
powers into action. 

2. That, in the most significant manner, it demands 
and exercises the self-activity of the worker. Self- 
activity, however, is the way to morality. Only 
action can train the character, and only in action can 
it become apparent. Also, only by action can moral- 
ity come to light. A mere passive morality, which 
only avoids the bad, but does nothing good, is but the 
beginning of true morality. The great Florentine 
(Dante) places in the fore-court of hell those who have 
avoided the bad, but have not earnestly striven after 
the good. 

3. That it places a barrier against idleness as 
against the beginning of all crimes. 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 157 

Children who have learned to employ themselves 
according to their inclinations will not lounge round 
and fall into all kinds of bad habits ; under the hardest 
exterior circumstances, they will find a means to satisfy 
their pleasura in a favorite employment, in building, 
fashioning, and construction. The parents will gladly 
satisfy the children's wishes in this direction ; the 
money which at present is paid out for useless play- 
things will suffice to furnish simple tools and working 
material. 

4. That it teaches the child to know, love, and 
respect labor, to appreciate correctly the value of 
labor products, and so to comprehend the social value 
of hand-laboring people. 

He who has never performed hand labor does not 
know how to value it, its products and the working 
class of people. The exchange or money value of a 
thing furnishes a poor standard by which to judge of 
the trouble of its manufacture, for it depends upon 
existing economic laws, and not upon the industry, 
capability, and trouble expended. The rich man 
seldom knows that to construct an article which he 
buys for one or two marks or francs, one must have 
given a long day's trouble, and have sweat or frozen 
and starved over it. Indeed, if everything could give 
the history of its construction, we should often shud- 
der over human misery, and we should think and act 
more humanely. It is a great misfortune for a state 
that the classes called to its guidance have seldom 



158 INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 

learned hand labor. If this were the case, we should 
have attained a true social reform and greater morality 
among the whole people. Our moral conduct depends 
materially upon our valuation of men and things. 

5. That it leads the child to a recognition of its 
powers as well as to a recognition of their limits, and 
teaches him to value the powers of others as well as 
the people themselves. 

Knowledge puffs up ; labor, on the contrary, ele- 
vates, and at the same time preserves us from conceit, 
for only by doing do we become conscious of the limits 
of our knowledge and capability. 

6. That it makes a proper choice of calling possi- 
ble, for only by self-activity and not by reception and 
reproduction is the individuality of the pupil devel- 
oped, and only self-activity teaches the pupil to know 
his powers and inclinations. 

7. That it promotes the interest of the parents in 
the school, and compensates for the contrast between 
school and life. 

Because for the majority of the people the school is 
so little an institution for preparation for life, are so 
many of the parents without interest in the school, and, 
indeed, unfriendly towards it. When the propertyless 
man goes out into life, his school knowledge as a rule 
is of very little use to him, and so he gains the idea 
that the school is of no use at all, or that it is really 
injurious. But if the school, by means of industrial 
instruction, prepare better for life, then the interest of 



INDUSTRIAL INSTRUCTION. 159 

the great mass of people will increase, and their antip- 
athy disappear. 

CONCLUSION. 

We hope we have succeeded in proving the educa- 
tional and social necessity for industrial instruction. 
That, however, which has become necessary in the 
world, whether by progressive knowledge or by changed 
relations, does not admit of refusal, but like a power of 
nature breaks its way. Hence, the subject of industrial 
instruction, notwithstanding the antipathy and preju- 
dice of capable schoolmen, will make its way. We 
understand these men well. By offices and honors 
they are too much connected with the school, and also 
by trouble and struggle they have even grown too old 
with the school to be able to enter upon new ways with 
satisfactory mental freshness. They yield to a law of 
nature, and remain behind. Their past will be for them 
the drag-chains of progress. We honor the labor of 
these men as of all labor that has helped to build up 
the public school, but we do not consider it as complete 
and finished ; we wish to continue it. We wish, above 
all things, to repair all neglect, to advance all that has 
been retarded, and to prepare a place for labor in the 
school. In doing this, we act according to the views, 
and in the spirit of our great educators, and fulfil the 
high aim of the public school, — to train the children 
to he mentally active ^ socially useful, and morally 

GOOD MEN. 



160 INDUSTEIAL nsrSTEUCTION. 

Labor ! thou that raisest the humble, consolest the 
sad, guidest the erring into the path of virtue ; thou 
comfort of the weak, salvation of the poor, and joy of 
the strong; thou help of the fallen, staff of the stum- 
bling, and comfort of the good ; thou image of the 
highest power, that raisest us to a likeness to Divinity ; 
thou that hast reared all mankind, and brought them 
out of barbarism ; thou wilt exercise thy mighty dis- 
ciplinary and educative power upon the plastic material 
of the rising generation, and through thee will be de- 
veloped a more beautiful and better youth, that shall 
be a joy and a blessing to the world. 



Manual Training. 



" When a man teaches h/s son no trade, it is as if he taught him highway 

robbery. ' ' 



Wood-JVorking Tools: How to Use Them. 

A handbook for teachers and pupils. Edited (for the hidnstrial School 
Association) by Channing Whitaker, Professor of Mechanical Engineer- 
ing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 5J4! by 7^ inches. 
Cloth. 104 pages. With 80 illustrations. Price by mail, 55 cents. Intro- 
duction price, 50 cents. 

A COURSE of simple lessons in the use of the universal tools : the 
hammer, knife, axe, plane,, rule, chalk-line, square, gauge, chisel, 
saw, and augur. The lessons are so amply illustrated that any bright 
boy will find the book alone a great help in his endeavors to learn the 
right way of using common tools. Nearly half of the illustrations were 
taken from life, and are efficient substitutes for lengthy and important 
printed instructions. The book is the result of actual experiments 
successfully made by the Industrial School Association of Boston. 
It will help people, who are interested in systematic and efficient 
industrial education, to begin it. 

" The Industrial School Association conducted small industrial 
schools at its own expense. It set itself to prepare a manual of 
instruction, based upon the actual experience of its teachers, with the 
aid of other teachers, in like schools in Gloucester and Cambridge, and 
this book is the result. Of course, its size is no indication of the 
labor and thought and money it has cost. As far as it goes, it aims to 
teach, and it does teach, how to use wood-working tools with singular 
thoroughness and intelligence. The Rev. George Leonard Chaney, 
President of the Association, writes a brief introduction, in which he 
says : ' A single workroom, like the one used by this school in Church 
Street, in any city, for the six months from December to May, during 



152 MANUAL TRAINING. 

which time it usually lies idle, with very little expense beyond the 
original plant and a moderate salary to the teacher, would meet all 
the wants of three or four of the largest grammar schools for boys. 
Three such supplementary schools, if used in turn, would amply satisfy 
all the rightful claims of industrial education of this kind upon the 
school system of such a city as Boston. At so small an outlay of 
attention and money might the native aptitude of the American youth 
for manual skill be turned into useful channels. In so simple a way 
might the needed check be given to that exclusive tendency towards 
classical rather than industrial pursuits which the present school course 
undoubtedly promotes.' We heartily welcome this little book for 
what it is, and of course what it promises, as we hope, for industrial 
education." — Boston Daily Advertiser. 

" Industrial education is becoming a popular theme, and for the 
welfare of society it is to be hoped that it will receive more and more 
attention. With the common -school system it may properly be 
intimately combined. No one should say aught against purely 
literary and scientific learning, but since so few are destined to a sole 
use of these acquisitions, in after-life it is important that knowledge 
available for the million should be more freely bestowed upon the 
young than it is. Since the lapse into disuse of the apprentice system, 
skilled workers for their efficiency have pretty much been left to their 
own resources in acquiring knowledge of a chosen occupation. To 
remedy this defect in the training of children, industrial schools, and 
special departments in ordinary schools, are now desired to meet the 
necessary want. As a text-book for this purpose, Messrs. D. C. 
Heath & Co., Boston, have published ' Wood-Working Tools : How to 
Use Them.' It is an illustrated manual of fourteen chapters, and 
aims to promote the handicraft required in all trades. To any youth 
with a native aptitude for the use of tools and a taste for mechanical 
work, it has all the requisites of an elementary volume, besides being 
as entertaining as it is plain and useful. The several chapters treat 
very fully of striking, splitting, cutting, planing, sharpening, adjusting, 
marking, sawing, reducing surfaces, squaring surfaces, boring, joining, 
finishing, etc. The work has been of great benefit in the industrial 
schools of Boston and elsewhere. Throughout the country it may with 
profit be universally adopted in every school, public or private, where 
young persons are taught." — Dubuque Trade Journal. 



MANUAL TRAINING. 



153 



The Bureau of Education at Washington has shown 
a great interest in this book, and sent if to several 
schools of science, who acknowledged its receipt by the 
following letters of commendation: — 



C. p. Brackett, Fro/, of Physics, Col- 
lege of New Jersey : It is an admirable 
little book. Every boy should be taught 
just the things it so well presents. 

Chas. Babcock, Prof, of Architec- 
ture in Cornell Univ. : I commend it 
heartily. 

Robt. W. Doutheat, Sec'yfor School 
of Mines, Rolla, Mo. : I feel free to say 
that I have never before seen a book 
which so completely and satisfactorily 
sets forth the true methods of using the 
tools needed by wood-workers. 

A. Vander Naillen, Pres. of School 
of Science, Sa?i Francisco, Cal. : I really 
think it not only very useful, but the idea 
full of possibilities. If followed up by 
other books on similar subjects, and as 
copiously illustrated, the idea will be a 
civilizing one, and the benefit to our ris- 
ing generations simply incalculable. 

Richard Mott, Pres. of Toledo ( O.) 
Univ. of Arts and Trades : This is a 
good work. An intelligent scholar can 
acquire from it a fair elementary knowl- 
edge of the trade without apprenticeship. 

Chas. H. Benjamin, Uept. Mech. 
Engineering, Me. State Coll. : It will 



Manual Training. 



doubtless be adopted as a basis for a 
course of instruction in wood-work. 

The Nation : It is a model of clear 
and concise directions. 

N. Y. Times : It wastes no words, but 
by terse text and apt illustration describes 
the operations of the wood-worker. To 
a nation of whittlers and choppers it 
should be a boon. 

Builder and Wood-Worker, 

N. Y. : The work is within the capacity 
of any one trustworthy enough to own a 
sharp jack-knife ; indeed, if the book was 
placed in the hands of every boy in the 
United States, both boys and States 
would be benefited. 

The Carpenter, St. Louis : No bet- 
ter present could be given a boy, and 
carpenters would do well to see that it is 
in the hands of their sons. 

Youth's Examiner, Chicago : This 
is one of the neatest and most useful 
volumes it has been our privilege to 
notice for some time. 

C. H. Dietrich, S7^pt. of Schools, Hop- 
kinsville, Ky. : It is a perfect gem. It de- 
serves to find a place in every family in 
America, and should be put in the hands 
of every boy, high or low, rich or poor. 



By Prof. C. M. Woodward, of the Manual Training School, Washington 
University, St. Louis. 

'X'HIS book is exceedingly practical, its main object being to show 
just how a manual training school should be organized and con- 
ducted. It contains courses of study, programmes of daily exercises, 
and working drawings and descriptions of class exercises in wood and 
metal. The course of drawing, which has proved eminently successful 
in the St. Louis school, is quite fully given. \Ready in October. 



THE FOLLOWING TABLE OF CONTENTS WILL GIVE A 
GOOD IDEA OF THE CHARACTER OF DR. WOOD- 
WARD'S BOOK. 

CHAPTER 

I. Historical Introduction 

II. The First Year of the Manual Training School . 

III. The Second Year of the Manual Training School . 

IV. The Third Year of the Manual Training School . 
V. The Records and Testimony of Graduates . 

VI. What Others who have seen it say of the Results 

of Manual Training 

VII. The Complementary Nature of Manual Training. 

( Saratoga Address of 1882) 

VIII. The Fruits of Manual Training. [Saratoga Address 

of 1883) 

IX. Manual Training a Feature in General Education. 

{Philadelphia Address of 1885) 

X. The Origin, Aims, Methods, and Dignity of Polytech- 
nic Training. [St. Louis Address of 1873) . 
XL Manual Education. [St. Louis Address of 1878) 
XII. Extracts from the Prospectus of 1879 .... 

XIII. The Province of Public Education. [Chicago Address 

of 1887) . 

XIV. European Schools . . . ■ . . . 

XV. Plans, Shop Discipline, Teachers, Reports, etc. . 

APPENDICES. 

I. St. Louis Manual Training School Course of Study . 

II. Toledo Manual Training School Course of Study 

for Girls 

III. Daily Program of the Toledo High and Manual 

Training School 

IV. Manual Training in the High School. [Address of Gen. 

Francis A. Walker at Chicago, 1887) 

V. Manual Training in School Education. (By Sir Philip 
Magnus) 



Education. 



"Thou that teachest another, teachesi thou not thyself?" 



T7OR American Schools and American Scholarship there is no 
more healthful sign than the newly-awakened interest of teach- 
ers in all that pertains to successful work and personal culture. At 
the outset of this great and wide-spread movement in favor of better 
methods and worthier results, it was but natural that the practical side 
of education should be treated out of all proportion, while its theoreti- 
cal and historical aspects should be somewhat overlooked. But if 
education is to become a science and teaching to be practised as an 
art, one means to this end is to gather and examine what has been 
done by those who have been engaged therein, and whose position and 
success have given them a right to be heard. Another and not less 
potent means is, to gain a clear comprehension of the psychological 
basis of the teacher's work, and a familiar acquaintance with the 
methods which rest upon correct psychological jarinciples. As con- 
tributions of inestimable value to the history, the philosophy, and the 
practice of education, we take pleasure in calling the attention of 
teachers to our books on Education, mentioned in the following pages. 
It is our purpose to add from time to time such books as have con- 
■tributed or may contribute so much toward the solution of educational 
problems as to make them indispensable to every true teacher's library. 

The folloiving good words, and also the opinions quoted 
under the several volumes, are an earnest of the appre- 
ciation in which the enterprise is held : — 

Dr. Wm. T. Harris, Concord, Mass. : 
I do not think that you have ever printed 
a book on education that is not worthy 
to go on any teacher's reading-list, and 
the best Hst. {March 26, 1886.) 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of the Science 
and Art of Teaching, Univ. of Wis. : 
Allow me to say that the list of books 
which you are publishing for the use of 



teachers seems to me of exceptional ex- 
cellence. I have watched the growth of 
the list with increasing pleasure, and I 
feel that you have done a service of great 
value to teachers. {May 26, 1886.) 

Nicholas Murray Butler, Acting 
Prof, of Phil., Ethics, and Psychology, 
Columbia College, N. Y. : I am greatly 
interested in your series of pedagogical 



110 



EDUCATION. 



publications, and am only too glad to aid 
the cause of scientific education by in- 
creasing their circulation by every means 
in my power. 

S. A. Ellis, Superintendent of Schools, 
Rochester, N. Y. : I most heartily com- 
mend the enterprise you have entered 
upon. These books may well be re- 
garded as indispensable to the outfit of 
every earnest teacher who would win 
success in the profession. In bringing 
them within the reach of every teacher 
of the land, you are doing a service 
that will entitle you to the gratitude of all 
who are interested in the work of educa- 
tion. Personally I wish you all the suc- 
cess you deserve. {Oct. 23, 1885.) 

"W. F. Phelps, Secretary St. Paul 
Chamber of Commerce, Minn. : No 
greater service could well be performed 
for the schools and the educators of this 
country than issuing these valuable and 
timely publications. They will leave the 
great body of teachers without an excuse 
for professional ignorance, and, with the 
facilities now offered through the read- 
ing circles and institutes, there will be 
no good reason why these books should 
not reach the great mass of the three 
hundred thousand teachers in the United 
States. {June 25, 1886.) 

J. J. Mills, Earlham College, Rich- 
mond, Ind. : I have looked over the dif- 
ferent volumes with much interest. You 
deserve great praise for your enterprise 



in putting the best pedagogical literature 
before the teachers of the country. I 
have your Leonard and Gertrude, and 
Emile, and prize them highly. 
(yan. 4, 1886.) 

W. M. West, Supt. of Schools,- Fari- 
batdt, Minn. : You may count upon the 
will of our reading-circle board to rec- 
ognize your publications, and personally 
I am in favor of substituting at once 
Sheldon's Studies in General History 
and Compayr6's History of Education 
for corresponding books on our list. 
{June 28, 1886.) 

A. W. Mell, Bowling Green, Ky.: 
Your firm is far in advance of any other 
in the publication of teachers' libraries, 
and deserves hearty recognition. 
{June 28, 1886.) 

Schoolmaster, London : The Amer- 
ican house of D. C. Heath & Co. is 
doing good service to teachers by the 
publication of their series of educational 
classics. We commend the Emile to 
every one interested in the education of 
the young. 

Critic, New York: Messrs. D. C. 
Heath & Co. are the publishers of a new 
and important series of works for teach- 
ers. In contributing further means for 
the enlightenment of our teaching worl(J, 
the editors and translators engaged in 
this series are doing a work which can- 
not fail of recognition and utility. 



A History of Pedagogy. 



Translated from Gabriel Compayr6's Histoire de la Pedagogie, by W. H. 
Payne, Professor of the Science and the Art of Teaching in the University 
of Michigan, who adds an Introduction, Notes, References, and an Index. 
SX by lYz inches. Cloth, xxvi -t- 592 pages. Price by mail, ^1.75; In- 
troduction price, ^1.60. 

'T^HIS book is confidently recommended to teachers and to students 
of Pedagogy, because, — 
I . It is comprehensive without being tedious. It covers tlte whole 



EDUCATION. 



Ill 



historic period, exhibits the progress made from age to age in the 
theory and art of education, and makes known the manner in which 
the greater nations and thinkers have understood the educational prob- 
lem. By this treatment of the subject, the teacher may become " the 
spectator of all time and all existence," in whatever pertains to his 
vocation. There is no other book which is so well adapted to broaden 
and liberalize the teaching profession. 

2. // is clear and interesting. M. Compayrd has not only the genius 
of selection, but also of clear and interesting presentation. The whole 
treatise is a series of clearly cut pictures, each having its own individu- 
ality, and impressing its own special lesson. For the most part, the 
successive sketches are typical ; duplicates are purposely and wisely 
omitted. Only the highest literary art can combine comprehensiveness 
and clearness ; but these effects are realized in this History of Pedagogy. 

3. It is critical and instructive. Historical facts, in order to be 
instructive and helpful, must be interpreted ; and such interpretation 
must come through critical insight. M. Compayre has this endowment 
in a pre-eminent degree. In him the reader finds a safe as well as a 
suggestive and entertaining guide. In this case history is truly " Phi- 
losophy teaching by example." 



WHAT LEADING EDUCATORS THINK OF IT. 



Gabriel Compayrd, Chambre des 
Deputes, Paris : Votre traduction me 
parait excellente, et je vous remercie des 
soins que vous y avez mis. J'ai grand 
plaisir a me relire dans votre langue, 
d'autant que vous n'avez rien neglige 
pour ['impression materielle. Combien 
vos editions Americaines sont superieures 
aux notres ! (10 Avril, 1886.) 

Dr. W. T. Harris, Concord, Mass. : 
Professor Payne has done a real service to 
education in translating M. Compayre's 
History of Pedagogy. The work has 
great merits. Indeed, it is indispensable 
among histories of education, for the rea- 
son that it shows us the subject from the 
standpoint of a Frenchman of broad and 
sound culture. The history of education 
has not been hitherto well represented 
in English educational literature, and yet 



it is the most important branch for the 
teacher. I congratulate you, therefore, 
upon the accession of Professor Payne's 
work to your hst. {April 2, 1886.) 

G. Stanley Hall, Pro/, of Pedagogy 
and Psychology, fohns Hopkins Univ. : 
It is the best and most comprehensive 
universal history of education in English. 
The translator has added valuable notes, 

Mrs. Horace Mann, Boston : I con- 
sider anything of his not only authentic 
but invaluable, because of his candid 
mind and thorough interest in the sub- 
ject, which enables him to give exhaus- 
tive treatises upon all points. 

Miss Elizabetli P. Peabody, Bos- 
ton, Mass. : If Compayre's History of 
Pedagogy had nothing else in it but 



EDUCATION. 



119 



Pennsylvania School Journal, 

Harrisburg : This ougtit to be a welcome 
book. For a reliable and comprehen- 
sive history of pedagogics we know not 
better where to turn than to the volume 
so well translated and so intelligently 
edited by Professor Payne. 
{June, 1886.) 

Education, Boston : Our great desid- 
eratum has been an artistic and critical 
treatment of the history of education and 
of educational doctrines, within moder- 
ate limits, — a work that at the same time 
might sustain interest and be a safe 
guide to our teachers in their efforts at 
self-culture. To be thus, — brief but not 
scrappy, entertaining but not frivolous, 



comprehensive and suggestive but not 
verbose, critical without loss of judicial 
fairness, and, withal, to sketch with the 
animation and symmetry of the artist, — 
requires the broadest culture, the clear- 
est insight of the problems involved, and 
the devotion of an enthusiast. All these 
high qualities Monsieur Compayr6 has 
brought to the production of his unique 
" History of Pedagogy." This book sup- 
plies in a large measure our especial 
need. Professor Payne's timely comple- 
tion of his task has now placed the lucid 
and inspiring thought of the brilliant 
French educator within the reach of all. 
He has thereby done a special service to 
American teachers, which we predict 
they will not be slow to appreciate. 



Giirs Systems of Education. 

A history and criticism of the principles, methods, organization, and 
moral discipline advocated by eminent educationists. By John Gill, 
Professor of Education, Normal College, Cheltenham, England. 4^ by 
6^ inches. Cloth, viii-f 312 pp. Price by mail, ^i.io; Introduction 
price, ^i.oo. 

CCHOOL education has to become a science. One means to this 
end is to gather and examine what has been done by those who 
have been engaged therein, and whose position or success has given 
them a right to be heard. 

Professor Gill's book includes in its treatment the systems repre- 
sented by : — 

The Pioneers ; Roger Ascham ; Cotnenius ; John Milton ; Johi> 
Locke ; Vicesimus Knox ; The Edgeworths ; Pestalozzi ; Oberlin ; 
Wilderspin ; Mayos ; Home and Colonial School Society ; Froebel : 
Dr. Andrew Bell ; Joseph Lancaster ; The Intellectual System ; Storr's 
Training System ; Brougham ; Thomas Wyse ; Horace Grant and the 
Educative Department in Present Existence. 

Much valuable and entertaining biographical matter is presented in 
connection with what the author has to say of the founder of each 
system. The Lancaster and Bell systems especially receive a fulness 
of treatment never luet in French or German works on the History of 
Education. The various chapters of this book were first presented as 



120 



EDUCATION. 



lectures to students in English training colleges ; and the author has 
given them this permanent form in the hope tliat they may stimulate 
those just starting in their profession, ever to work, with the purpose 
of placing their art on a scientific basis. 

The following co^ntnendatlons of this book have already 
been received : — 



■W. H. Payne, Prof, of the Science 
and Art of Teaching, Univ, of Michi- 
gan : I have a high opinion of Gill's 
Systems of Education, and can heartily 
commend it to those who wish to make 
a study of the more celebrated English 
teachers and their systems of education 
and instruction. I know of no other 
book where such information can be 
so conveniently found. {^May 3, 1886.) 

"Win. T. Harris, Concord, Mass. : I 
can say truly that I- think it eminently 
worthy of a place on the Chautauqua 
Reading List, because it treats so ably 
the Lancaster and Bell Movement in 
Education, — a very important phase. 

E. H. Russell, Prin. State Normal 
School, Worcester, Mass. : It will prove 
a most valuable help in studying the his- 
tory of education, and from its conven- 
ient size will be preferred by many to 
the bulkier and more ambitious treatises 
on the same subject. Though brief, it is 
not meagre. You have put it in very 
comely attire, and I hope it will have a 
good sale. 

I shall adopt it in this school as one 
of our regular books in the history of 
education. It will conflict with nothing 
now in use; it is well written: it deals 
ably with the phases of instruction and 
training that have held sway in England ; 
its size and cheapness make it possible 
to use it as a supplementary book where 
others have possession of the field. 

Nicholas Murray Butler, Acting 
Prof, of Philosophy, Ethics, and Psychol- 
ogy, Columbia Coll., New York : Gill 



emphasizes some features in English 
pedagogy; for instance, the work of 
Beil, of Lancaster, and of the Edge- 
worths, that are seldom mentioned in 
the French and German histories of edu- 
cation. I knew of the announcement of 
the book, but did not expect it to be 
published so soon. Had I known that 
it was ready, it should certainly have had 
a place in the course of reading. If a 
new issue is necessary, as seems proba- 
ble, I will add it to the hst. 

Education, Boston : Aside from the 
historical merit of the book, the criticism 
contained in it is temperate and judi- 
cious. We deem it worthy a place in 
every teacher's library. 

Prof. Bain, Aberdeen, Scot. : A valua- 
ble little book on the Systems of Educa- 
tion. 

Schoolniaster, London : We recom- 
mend it to all whose duty or pleasure it 
is to aid in the great work of education. 

School Guardian, London: We wel- 
come Mr. Gill's book as a valuable con- 
tribution to the literature of the art ol 
teaching. 

School Board Chronicle, London : 
The book is clearly, forcibly, and pleas- 
antly written. 



Educational Times, London . 
doubtless be read with interest. 



Will 



Saturday Revie'W, London : A very 
clear and intelligent account of the dif- 
ferent systems of education. 



EDUCATION. 



121 



Rosminis Method in Education. 

Translated from the Italian of Antonio Rosmini Serbati by Mrs. 
William Grey, whose name has been widely known in England for 
many years past as a leader in the movement for the higher education 
of women. 5^ by 7}^ inches. Cloth, xxvi + 363 pages. Price by mail, 
$1.50; Introduction price, ^1.40. 

'T^HIS is a work of singular interest for the educational world, and 
especially for all those who desire to place education on a scientific 
basis. 

It is an admirable exposition of the method of presenting knowl- 
edge to the human mind in accordance with the natural laws of its 
development ; and the disciples of Froebel will find in it not only a 
perfectly independent confirmation, but the true psychological estimate 
of the principles of Froebel's kindergarten system. We believe that 
this translation of the work of the great Italian thinker will prove 
a boon to all English-speaking lovers of true education on both sides 
of the Atlantic. \Ready in October. 



Mr. Thomas Davidson, Orange, 
N.J.: It is one of the most careful works 
of the ablest and most comprehensive 
thinker of the nineteenth century, a man 
of whom friend and foe alike speak with 
reverence as of a saint, and who, indeed, 
was a saint. {^Feb, 20, 1886.) 

The University, Chicago : Any 
American student of pedagogy, who, 
after working in the German literature 
of the subject, has found relief by turn- 
ing to the French writers, will experience 
the same pleasant impression on becom- 
ing acquainted with the educational liter- 
ature of Italy. Lightness and clearness 



are among its valuable qualities ; while no 
one that has undertaken Sicilian! or Ros- 
mini will deny its depth and solidity. To 
an American schoolman it is a wholesome 
lesson to survey the foreign pedagogic 
field and to learn that the great questions 
which press for solution at home are the 
questions among other peoples also, 
where they may often be seen in more 
advanced stages of development, or even 
already settled. By no means do we 
lead the world in education. We are a 
vigorous younger child in the great 
family of cultured nations, becoming 
now old enough to respect o.ur elders. 



Lectures to Kindergartners. 

By Elizabeth P. Peabody. Published at the urgency of a large 
number of Kindergartners, inasmuch as Miss Peabody is no longer able 
to speak viva voce. 514^ by 7^ inches. Cloth, viii-j- 225 pages. Price by 
mail, ^i.io; Introduction price, ^i.oo. 

'T'HE first of these lectures introduced and interested the Boston 

public in Kindergarten education. The seven others are those 

which, for nine or ten successive years, Miss Peabody addressed to 



122 EDUCATION. 



the training classes for Kindergartners, in Boston and other cities. 
They unfold the idea which, though as old as Plato and Aristotle, and 
set forth more or less practically from Comenius to Pestalozzi, was 
for the first time made into an adequate system by Froebel. The 
lectures begin with the natural exemplification of this idea in the nursery^ 
followed by two lectures on how the nursery opens up into the Kinder- 
garten through the proper use of language and conversation with 
children, finally developing into equipoise the child's relations to 
his fellows, to nature, and to God. Miss Peabody draws many 
illustrations from her own psychological observations of child-life. 

Habit and its Importance in Education. 

Art Essay in Pedagogical Psychology. Translated from the German of 
Dr. Paul Radestock by F. A. Caspari, Teacher of German, Girls' High 
School, Baltimore; with an Introduction by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Pro- 
fessor of Psychology and Pedagogy, Johns Hopkins University. 5)4^ by 7^ 
inches. Cloth, ix+117 pages. Price by mail, 65 cents; Introduction 
price, 60 cents. 

pROFESSOR RADESTOCK has devoted some of the best years 
of his life to practical teaching and a research into the principles 
at the base of m.ost habits. His book contains an able and practical 
discussion of: — 

I. Value and Limits of Education; Force and Value of Habit-, 
Various Definitions of Habit. II. Relations between Psychology and 
Physiology ; Cause and Effect of Sensorial Impressions ; Various Ways 
of extending Impressions. III. Relations of Concepts to each other. 

IV. Properly associated Habits ; Habit and Habitude ; Principle of 
Associated Practice ; Repetition ; Habit in the Organic World ; Re- 
sults of Habit ; Negative and Positive Use of Power ; Division and 
Concentration of Power ; Aim of Human Education ; Object Lessons. 

V. The Intellect ; Memory and Imagination ; Process of Logical 
Thinking ; Conception Series ; Laws of the Association of Ideas ; 
Talents resulting from a Combination of the Imagination and the 
T - "ellectual Faculties. VI. The Will; Influence of Habit on thci 
ij^ntire Psychological Life ; Value of Associates and Environment ; 
Habitude of Personal Action; Advantage of School versus Home 
Education. VII. Special Habits ; Cleanliness ; Punctuality ; Neat- 
ness ; Endurance ; Self-Control ; Obedience ; Politeness ; Attention ; 



EDUCATION. 



123 



Diligence; Unselfishness; Exercise; Stud}'. VIII. Moral Habits. 

IX. Extreme Habituation, 111 Effects of; Three Theories concerning 
the Emotions ; Necessity of Change in Instruction ; Punishments ; 
Higher ^Esthetic Feelings ; Prejudice ; Pedantry ; Law of Relativeness ; 

X. Habit and Free Will ; Genius ; Insanity. XI. An Appendix. 

Bacon says : " Since custom is the principal magisti'ate of man's 
life, let men, by all means, endeavor to obtain good customs. Cer- 
tainly, custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years ; this 
we call education, which is in effect but early custom." 

The translator has done her work admirably, and has given us 
entire the little book in which Dr. Radestock has rendered his chief 
service to education. 



The subjoined extracts frotn letters and reviews will 
aid teachers, normal-school classes, and students of 
psychology generally, to fonn some idea of the estimate 
placed upon the hook by competent judges : — 



John Dewey, Instructor in Philoso- 
phy, Ann Arbor Univ., Mich. : Radestock 
has been for some time favorably known 
by means of his psychological mono- 
graphs, of which this upon Habit is no 
doubt the best, as it is also without doubt 
the most suggestive and fruitful of all 
monographs upon this most important 
of educational subjects. Personally I 
have been greatly interested in the wide 
range of psychological knowledge shown, 
and in the command of the best methods 
and results of the newer and more exper- 
imental psychology. In the hands of a 
competent teacher, it would make an 
excellent introduction to the later methods 
of looking at all kinds of psychological 
subjects. {A/ay 7, 1886.) 

Nicholas Murray Butler, Acting 
Prof, of Ethics and Psychology, Columbia 
Coll., N. V. .■ Radestock's book is a most 
engaging little work, and I trust that 
teachers may be led to read its words 
and reflect on its precepts. I knew of 
its announcement, but did not know that 
it was ready; otherwise it should cer- 



tainly have had a place in our " Course 
of Reading." (April ^o, 1886.) 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of Science and 
Alt of Teaching, Univ. of Wis., Madi- 
son : It is a very interesting and valuable 
study for those who care about knowing 
the psychological basis of teaching. You 
have certainly conferred a great favor 
upon teachers by placing so admirable 
a treatise within their reach, and I hope 
it may become widely known. 
{May 26, 1886.) 

S. N. Fellows, Chair of Mental and 
Moral Philosophy and Didactics, State 
Univ. of la. : I have read it with great 
interest, and regard it as a valuable con- 
tribution to pedagogical literature. It 
should find a place in every teacher's 
library. It may certainly be affirmed 
that good habits are next in importance 
to good principles, if not of equal impor- 
tance. And this book is full of valuable 
suggestions to the educator who would 
aid his pupils in forming right .habits. 
{May 25, 1886.) 



126 



EDUCATION. 



Popular Educator : The subject is 
certainly a very important one, and the 
author is an eminent psychologist. The 
book is well printed, tastefully and 
strongly bound, moderate in price, and, 
as Dr. Hall observes in his preface, both 
translator and publisher " merit the 
thanks of those American teachers who 
are interested in the psychological basis 
of their vocation." {June, 1886.) 

Intellig'ence, Chicago'. The impor- 
tance of right habits as a product of 
school training is receiving more and 
more attention. In this line of thought 
and practice every reflective teacher will 
find this essay of great value. It is the 
product of a master who has the skill 
and power of presenting deep scientific 
principles in a very clear and simple 
manner. {June 15, 1886.) 



Central School Journal : Dr. Paul 

Radestock, who has attained to a wide 
degree of eminence as the author of sev- 
eral brilliant psychological monographs, 
has presented here a most admirable 
and comprehensive brochure upon the 
subject of " Habit in Education." Dr. 
G. Stanley Hall, of Johns Hopkins, has 
edited the work, and the publishers, 
Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., whose mark 
is a synonym of high excellence, have 
dressed the book with taste and neat- 
ness. {J^ly, 1886.) 

The Christian Register : The im- 
portance of habit in education is a trite 
maxim of teachers and moralists; but 
the subject has not received the full state- 
ment that it has needed from a psycho- 
logical standpoint. This work is an im- 
portant one, and demands the earnest 
study of teachers. 



Extracts from Rousseau' s Ewiile. 

Containing the Principal Elements of Pedagogy. With an Introduction 
and Notes by Jules Steeg, Paris, Depute de la Gironde. Translated by 
Eleanor Worthington, recently of the Cook County Normal School, 
111. 5X ^7 7/4 inches. Cloth. 157 pp. Price by mail, 85 cts.; Intro- 
duction price, 80 cts. 

" There are fifty pages of the Emile that should be bound in velvet and gold." 

— Voltaire. 

T N these pages will be found the germ of all that is useful in present 
systems of education, as well as most of the ever-recurring mistakes 
of well-meaning zealots. 

The book has been called '■'■ Natia-e's First Gospel on Education.'''' 
Among its pregnant texts, are : The Object of Education ; The New- 
born Child ; The Earliest Education ; Maxims to keep us True to 
Nature ; The Cultivation of Language ; Childhood to be loved ; 
Neither Slaves nor Tyrants; Reasoning should not begin too soon; 
Well-Regulated Liberty ; The Idea of Property ; Falsehood ; The Force 
of Example ; Negative or Temporizing Education ; The Memory ; The 
Study of Words ; Physical Training ; Clothing ; Sleep ; Training the 
Senses ; Drawing ; Geometry ; The Voice ; The Age of Study ; Curi- 



EDUCATION. 



127 



osity as an Incentive ; Things rather than Symbols ; A Taste for 
Science ; Experimental Physics ; Nothing to be taken upon Authority ; 
Learning from Necessity ; The Forest of Montmorency ; Robinson 
Crusoe ; The Pupil at the Age of Fifteen ; Results. 

The eighteenth century translations of this wonderful book have the 
disadvantage of an English style long disused. This new translation 
has the merit of being in the dialect of the nineteenth century, and will 
thus be enjoyed by a wider circle of readers. 

In Educational Theories, Oscar Browning says concerning this 
book : Probably no work on the subject of education has produced 
so much effect as the '•'■ Emile.'''' 



The following extracts from letters and reviews serve 
to shotv tvith wJiat cordiality this new edition has been 
received: — 



G. Stanley Hall, Pivf, of Pedagogy, 
Johns Hopkins Univ. : I have examined 
your convenient edition of the " Emile," 
and shall recommend it to my educational 
classes. 

"W. H. Payne, Prof, of Pedagogics, 
University of Michigan : I have spent 
considerable time in reading the " Emile " 
and in comparing certain parts of the 
translation with the original. Miss Wor- 
thington has made a version of real 
merit ; Rousseau's thought has been 
transferred to English with great accu- 
racy, and much of the original grace of 
style has been preserved. The teachers 
of the country are indebted to you for 
this invaluable contribution to the litera- 
ture of the profession. {Dec. 15, 1884.) 

J. W. Dickinson, Sec. of Mass. 
Board of Education : It should be in the 
hands of every teacher in the State. 

Francis W. Parker, Prin. Cook Co. 
Normal School: Teachers need to go 
back to the man who gave sucli an im- 
mense impulse to reform in education. 

R. H. Quick, in " Educatioital Re-\ 
formers " : Perhaps the most influential | 



book ever written on the subject of edu- 
cation. 

London Journal of Education: 

The amazing originality and boldness of 
the book, its endless suggestiveness, are 
too often ignored by English critics, who 
forget that nearly all our brand-new 
theories are to be found in " Emile." 

School Bulletin, A^. V. .- The 
" Emile " is far the most influential of all 
the historically great books in pedagogy. 

PhiladelpMa Press: There is no 
need to praise it. The present translation 
ought to be in the hands of every teacher 
and parent. 

Boston Advertiser: Such a book 
as this ought to be read by every one 
who claims to be interested in any way 
in the cause of education. 

Normal Echo, Lexington, N.C. : 
This little book contains many gems 
that have shone through the rubbish of 
more than a century. Tliough so old, 
they are elemental truths, and carry with 
them the freshness of youth. The book 
should be read by all teachers. 



EDUCATION. 



129 



cators of the young who could not profit 
by its wise suggestions. 

Pilot, Boston : The present version 
is in good English, and will no doubt 
find many readers who would have been 
repelled by the proportions of the origi- 
nal, and by the antiquated translations. 

The School Herald : " Emile " is 
one of the educational classics of the 
world. The three-volume novel, however, 
which, at its first publication a century ago, 
produced, such a sensation among bish- 
ops and dons, would be too wearisome a 
work for modern readers. This version 
is in a style altogether commendable for 
clearness and simplicity, and should be 
widely read by teachers who would know 
the thoughts of one of the most brilliant 
of philosophers on education. 
{Dec. 15, 1886.) 

Journal of Speculative Philoso- 
phy: No single book ever made so 
much noise in the world. It was the 
gospel of the latter half of the eighteenth 
century. Condemned by church and 
state, its principles were accepted and 
practised in private, especially in Ger- 
many and Switzerland. Three cele- 
brated educators were inspired by it — 
Basedow, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. This 
will be enough to recommend it to the 



attention of all those who are at present 
discussing the kindergarten, and the en- 
largement of the scope of education, 
from the nursery to the university. 
( October, 1885.) 

Schoolmaster, London: "We com., 
mend the " Emile " to every one inter- 
ested in the education of the young. 

The Teacher, Philadelphia : From 
the day of the appearance of " Emile " 
to the present, Rousseau's best theories 
have been promulgated by a continuous 
line of disciples ; and they are reflected 
in all the recent improvements made in 
courses of instruction for young children. 
A perusal of this work will show some 
of our " advanced thinkers " how old all 
that is best in the " New Education " is. 

The Pennsylvania Journal of 
Education : The " Emile " effected a 
genuine and needed reformation in the 
home and school education of children, 
and indeed of their treatment in general. 
The abridgment before us is far more 
useful than the original would be. It 
gives all that is essential, and even more, 
of the French philosopher's educa- 
tional theories ; all the gems of his work, 
and they are many and of the finest lus- 
tre, with none, or at least very little of the 
dross. 



Pestalozzi s Leonard and Gertrude. 



Translated and abridged by EvA Channing. With an Introduction by 
G. Stanley Hall, Professor of Pedagogy in Johns Hopkins University. 
5^ by 7>^ inches. Cloth. 193 pp. Price by mail, 85 cts.; Introduction 
price, 80 cts. 

'HTHIS is a carefully abridged translation, in which the gist of five 
large volumes is compressed into a book of less than two hundred 
pages, which, while retaining much of the quaint simplicity of the 
original, avoids its repellant prolixity and converts the reader's task 
into a pleasure. 



130 



EDUCATION. 



It is a book which all teachers should read with care, for it com- 
prises within modest limits the whole substance of the Pestalozzian 
theory of education. 

In this charming, instructive, and suggestive union of a capital story 
and a pedagogical treatise, Pestalozzi sets forth his radical, far-reaching 
views of the true scope and end of education as well as of the true 
method of attaining that end. 

Under its wit and wisdom, its humor and pathos, he inculcates the 
strongest moral lessons or the most helpful doctrines of political, 
social, and personal education. 

Every mother should read the book, for, as Oscar Browning says in 
his " Educational Theories," " a mother who follows the principles incul- 
cated in this book can educate her children as if she were the posses- 
sor of all the sciences." 

This volume and the " Emile " gave rise to a revolution in educa- 
tional matters, and they will be found to contain the best, because 
the original and simplest, statement of the great principles that must 
guide every successful teacher. 

It is this book on which Pestalozzi's fame as an author mainly rests, 
and this book was dictated by an earnest desire to lift up the lower 
classes of Switzerland — to found a Republic of thought, of capabilities, 
of work. 



R. H. Quick, hi " Educational Re- 
formers" : No wonder that the Berne 
Agricultural Society sent the author a 
gold medal, with a letter of thanks ; and 
that the book excited vast interest, both 
in its native country and throughout 
Germany. It is only strange that " Leon- 
ard and Gertrude " has not become a 
favorite, by means of translations, in other 
countries. 

The Nation: Its effect, not only in 
Germany, but throughout Europe, was 
great and immediate. Every teacher will 
be stimulated and instructed by reading 
this quaint and thrilling educational ro- 
mance, quite apart from its great histori- 
cal importance. 

The New York Independent : As 
a story it is effective and interesting. As 



a theory of education it is ideal, with a 
strong touch of Rousseau Utopianism in 
it — a Utopianism, however, which con- 
sists very largely in the attempt to con- 
struct human society on the basis of the 
Sermon on the Mount. 

Harvard Advocate : Pestalozzi's 
style is vividly realistic; the characters 
of the book are strongly drawn. The 
work of abridgment was a difficult one;' 
Miss Channing has, however, been suc- 
cessful, and the story loses nothing in 
force and interest under her hands. 

Ann Arbor University : It not 

only has the n.erit of being educational, 
but charmingly portrays German peasant 
life in the eighteenth century. It can be 
heartily recommended to all, its very 
blemishes being wholesome. 



EDUCATION. 133 



Lev ana ; or, the Doctrine of Education. 

A Translation from Jean Paul Frederick Richter. 5 by 7^ inches. 
Cloth, xliv + 413 pages. Price by mail, ^1.35; Introduction price, $1.25. 

AirE add this volume to our series of "Educational Classics" in 
the belief that it will tend to ameliorate that department of 
education which is most neglected and yet needs most care, — home 
training. 

Among other topics, it treats of: — 
The Importance of Education. Development of the Desire for Intel- 

The Spirit and Principle of Education. lectual Progress. 

To Discover and to Appreciate the Speech and Writing. 

Individuality of the Ideal Man. Attention and the Power of Adaptive 

Religious Education. Combination. 

The Beginning of Education. Development of Wit. 

The Joyousness of Children. Development of Reflection. 

Games of Children. Abstraction and Self-Knowledge, to- 

Music. gether with an extra paragraph on 

Commands, Prohibitions, Punish- the Powers of Action and Business. 

ments. • On the Education of the Recollection 

Physical Education. — not of the Memory. 

Female Education. Development of the Sense of Beauty. 

The Moral Education of Boys. Classical Education. 

A Descriptive Bibliography of Education. 

Arranged by topics. By G. Stanley Hall, Professor of Psychology and 
Pedagogy, Johns Hopkins University, and John M. Mansfield. 5X by 
7>^ inches. Cloth, xv + 309 pages. Price by mail, ^1.75. Introduction 
price, ^1.60. Interleaved edition, ^2.00. 

T N his preface to this book, Dr. Hall says : — 

"In the field of more strictly pedagogic literature, which is rela- 
tively limited, the material is yet far too great to be mastered in a life- . 
time of the most diligent reading, and the reading time of most 
teachers is qxi'ite limited. Hence they cannot be too select in their 
choice of books. . . . The habit of reading what is beneath one's 
level, whether fostered by a sense of duty, or, worst of all, by a false 
sense of the authority of things printed, is belittling, and the exact 
inverse of educational. 

" Teachers who will be as select in their reading as we should all 
be in the society we keep, and who will vigorously reject the second 



134 



EDUCATION. 



best, — to say nothing of the tenth or twentieth best, and making all 
reasonable reservations, — may, I believe, in the time at their disposal, 
and now squandered on print unworthy of them, reasonably hope to 
master most of the best, if they confine themselves to one language 
and one department. 

" To do this, however, not only is some hardihood of self-denial, but 
also some knowledge of the good and evil in pedagogic print, needed, 
and just this is what American teachers are at present seeking with 
more interest and in more ways, as I believe, than ever before. In 
seeking the best there is much to mislead and little to guide teachers. 
In the great work of designating and grouping the best, the present 
volume is only a hint, a first suggestion. It is, in the phrase of an 
educational leader to whom its writer has been chiefly indebted for 
suggestions during its preparation, only a foot-path roughly blazed, 
and by no means a finished highway, though the latter may eventually 
follow about this course. . . . 

" In the general reading of every teacher, of whatever grade, should 
be included some work on the history of education, and some psycho- 
logical and some hygienic literature. Every teacher should also select 
some department or topic, connected in many cases probably with the 
teaching they prefer, about which the reading should centre. In this 
field they would in time come to know the best that had been done or 
said, and themselves become more or less an authoritative centre of 
information for others about them, and perhaps make contributions 
that would render many their debtors, not only by positive additions 
to their knowledge, but in guiding their reading, which is one of the 
greatest aids one person can render another. As teachers thus gradu- 
ally become specialists in some such limited sense, their influence will 
do more than has yet been accomplished to realize the ideal of making 
their work professional in a way in some degree worthy that high term, 
and they will be able gradually to effect a greatly needed reform in the 
present character of text-books, and all who would lead in public school 
education will slowly come to see the need of thorough and extended 
professional study." 



N. E. Jour, of Education : Prof. 

G.Stanley Hall's Bibliography of Educa- 
tional Literature promises to be the 
most valuable teacher's aid in home 
study ever issued. 



We know of no man who is better 
equipped for such service; and he has 
taken the time and been given all the 
assistance necessary for the perfection of 
the enterprise. 



EDUCATION. 135 



Monographs on Education. 

IV/r ANY contributions to the theory or the practice of teaching are 
yearly lost to the profession, because they are embodied in arti- 
cles which are too long, or too profound, or too limited as to number 
of interested readers, for popular magazine articles, and yet not suffi- 
cient in volume for books. We propose to publish from time to time, 
under the title of Mo7iographs on Edtication, just such essays, pre- 
pared by specialists, choice in matter, practical in treatment, and of 
unquestionable value to teachers. Our plan is to furnish the mono- 
graphs in paper covers, and at low prices. We shall continue the 
series as long as teachers buy freely enough to allow the publishers to 
recover merely the money invested. 

Of this series we are now ready to announce the four following : — 



Modern Petrography. 



An account of the Application of the Microscope to the Study of Geology, 
by George Huntington Williams, of the Johns Hopkins University. 
5 t>y 7X inches. Paper. 35 pages. Price by mail, 25 cents. 



The Study of Latin in the Preparatory 

Course. By Edward P. Morris, M.A., Professor of Latin, Williams 
College, Mass. 5 by 7^ inches. Paper. 00 pages. Price by mail. 
25 cents. 

Mathematical Teaching and its Modern 

Methods. By Truman Henry Safford, Ph.D., Field Memorial Professor 
of Astronomy in WiUiams College. 5 by "]% inches. Paper, 00 pages. 
Price by mail, 00 cents. \_Ready in August. 

How to Teach Reading, and What to Read 

In the Schools. By G. Stanley Hall, Professor of Psychology and Peda- 
gogy, Johns Hopkins University. 5 by 7X inches. Paper, co pages. 
Price by mail, 00 cents. \_Ready in September. 



HISTORY. 99 

Methods of Teaching and Studying History. 

Second Edition. Entirely recast and rewritten. Edited by G. Stanley 
Hall, Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy in Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity. sX by 7>^ inches. Cloth, xiv + 386 pages. Price by mail, $1.40; 
Introduction price, $1.30. 

'T^HIS volume contains, in the form most likely to be of direct prac- 
tical utility to teachers, as well as to students and readers of his- 
tory, the opinions and modes of instruction, actual or ideal, of eminent 
and representative specialists in each department. About half the 
material of the first edition has been eliminated from this second 
edition, and new matter substituted to an extent which somewhat ■ 
enlarges the volume, and of a kind which so increases its value and 
utility that readers of the old edition will find this essentially a new 
work. The following Table of Contents will give a good idea of the 
plan and scope of the book : — 
Introduction. By the Editor. 
Methods of Teaching American History. By Dr. A. B. Hart, Harvard 

University. 
The Practical Method in Higher Historical Instruction. By Pro- 
fessor Ephraim Emerton, of Harvard University. 
On Methods of Teaching Political Economy. By Dr. Richard T. Ely, 

Johns Hopkins University. 
Historical Instruction in the Course of History and Political Sci- 
ence at Cornell University. By President Andrew D. White, Cornell 
University. 
Advice to an Inexperienced Teacher of History. By W. C. Collar, A.M., 

Head Master of Roxbury Latin School. 
A Plea for Arch^o logical Instruction. By Joseph Thacher Clarke, Di- 
rector of the Assos Expedition. 
The Use of a Public Library in the Study of History. By William E. 

Foster, Librarian of the Providence Public Library. 
Special Methods of Historical Study. By Professor Herbert B. Adams, 

Johns Hopkins University. 
The Philosophy of the State and of History. By Professor George S. 

Morris, Michigan and Johns Hopkins Universities. 
The Courses of Study in PIistory, Roman Law, and Political Economy 

at Harvard University. By Dr. Henry E. Scott, Harvard University. 
The Teaching of History. By Professor J. R. Seeley, Cambridge University, 
England. 



100 



HISTORY. 



On Methods of Teaching History. By Professor C. K. Adams, Corne' 
University. 

On Methods of Historical Study and Research in Columbia Univer 
SITY. By Professor John W. Burgess, Columbia University. 

Physical Geography and History. 

Why do Children dislike History ? By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 

Gradation and the Topical Method of Historical Study. Part I.— 
Historical Literature and Authorities. Part H. — Books for Collateral Reading, 
Part in. — School Text-Books. Supplement. 

History Topics. By Professor W. F. Allen, Wisconsin University. 

Bibliography of Church History (see special index to this article). By 
Rev. John Alonzo Fisher, Johns Hopkins University. 

Tlie following opinions of the book will he of interest to 
teachers and students of history : — 



Alice E. Freeman, Fres. of Wel- 
lesley Coll., Mass. : It is an admirable 
book in every way. What these men 
say in regard to their methods of work is 
most wise, as I know by experience as a 
student and as a teacher. The "Semi- 
nary Method " was an inspiration to me 
under that eminently good teacher, Prof. 
C. K. Adams, and it is our method of 
advanced work here. {yan. i6, 1884.) 

Georg-e Lilley, Pres. of Dakota 
Agricultural Coll., Brookings : I wish to 
recommend the work to our class of nor- 
mal teachers connected with the college. 
{^April 12, 1886.) 

Paul Frederica, Professeur a V Uni- 
versite de Gand, Ghent, Belgiu7n : Veuil- 
lez remercir de ma part celui ou ceux 
des auteurs qui ont bien voulu me faire 
envoyer cet interessant ouvrage. Agreez 
mes salutations distingues. 
(yan. 12, 1884.) 

A. M. Sperry, Supt. of Schools, Dodge 
County, Minn. : In adopting it as a guide 
for the teachers of this county in teach- 
ing history in our common schools I ex- 
press in the most practical way possible 
my opinion of its adaptation to their 



needs. It marks the beginning of bet- 
ter work in history. It will reveal to the 
teacher the means of awakening and 
guiding the historical sense in their 
pupils, and of giving to the study its 
true place as a source of pleasure and of 
power, not less in the common than in 
higher schools. (Fed. 21, 1884.) 

Rev. S. L. Stiver, Frin. of Bunker 
Hill Academy, III. : It is the most com- 
plete of its kind, and clearly sets forth 
the best general methods of work in this 
important branch of science and peda- 
gogics. The appendix, upon historical 
outlines and bibliography, is well worth 
the price in itself, and should be in the 
possession of every well-informed and 
progressive teacher of history, 
(March 8, 1884.) 

S. J. Sornberg-er, Teacher of His- 
tory, State Normal and Training School, 
Cortla7id, N. Y. : I am very much pleased 
with the book. It gives to the teacher 
an outlook into the field of history which 
without it would never have been real- 
ized. The list of works of reference is 
alone worth the price of the book, 
(March 17, 1884.) 



Science. 

Orga n ic Chein is try : 

An Introduction to the Study of the Compounds of Carbon. By Ira Remsen, Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, x + 364 pages. Cloth. Price by 
mail, $1.30; Introduction price, $1.20. 

The Elements of Inorganic Chemistry: 

Descriptive a?id Qiiniitative, By James H. Shepard, Instructor in Chemistry in the 
Ypsilanti High School, iSIichigan. xxii + 377 pages. Cloth. Price by mail, $1.25; Introduc- 
tion price, $1.12. 

The Elem^ents of Chetnical Arithmetic : 

With a Short System of Elementary Qualitative Analysis. By J. Milnor Coit, 
M.A., Ph.D., Instructor in Chemistry, St. Paul's School, Concord, N.H. iv + 89 pages. 
Cloth. Price by mail, 55 cts. ; Introduction price, 50 cts. 

The Laboratory Note-Book. 

For Students using any Chemistry. Giving printed forms for " taking notes " ana 
working out formulae. Board covers. Cloth back. 192 pages. Price by mail, 40 cts. ; Intro- 
duction price, 35 cts. 

Elementary Course in Practical Zoology. 

By B. P. CoLTON, A.M., Instructor in Biology, Ottawa High School. 

First Book of Geology. 

By N. S. Shaler, Professor of Palaeontology, Harvard University. 272 pages, with 130 
figures in the text. 74 pages additional in Teachers' Edition. Price by mail, $1.10; IntrcH 
duction price, $1.00. 

Guides for Science -Teaching. 

Published under the auspices of the Boston Society of Natural History. For 

teachers who desire to practically instruct classes in Natural History, and designed to supply 
such information as they are not likely to get from any other source. 26 to 200 pages each. Paper. 

I. H\att's About Pebbles, 10 cts. 
II. Goodale's Few Common Plants, 15 cts. 

III. Hyatt's Commercial and Other 

Sponges, 20 cts. 

IV. Agassiz's First Lesson in Natural 

History, 20 cts. 
V. Hyatt's Corals and Echinoderms, 
20 cts. 



VI. Hyatt's Mollusca, 25 cts. 
VII. Hyatt's Worms and Crustacea, 

25 cts. 
XII. Crosby's Common Minerals and 

Rocks, 40 cts. Cloth, 60 cts. 
XIII. Richards' First Lessons in Min- 
erals, 10 cts. 



The Astro7tomical Lanter^i. 

By Rev. James Freeman Clarke. Intended to familiarize students with the constella. 
tions by comparing them with fac-similes on the lantern face. Price of the Lantern, in im- 
proved form, with seventeen slides and a copy of " How to Find the Stars," $4.50. 

How to Find the Stars. 

By Rev. James Freeman Clarke. Designed to aid the beginner in becoming beUel 
acquainted, in the easiest way, with the visible starry heavens. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, 

3 Tremont Place, Boston. 



'^ ^Qmoi 



r'}V 21 1901 



